


Harmonies Unconquerable

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2020 [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Goblins, Gringotts Wizarding Bank, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Humor, Minor Character Death, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Present Tense, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27792526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: The second half of goblin-raised Harry’s fourth year and the first half of his fifth year at Hogwarts. Voldemort would probably like it if he had Harry’s attention all to himself, but let’s face it, Harry has a Tournament to ruin, insults to get revenge for, the Argent Ocean to research, more goblin and human magic to learn, interfering humans to handle, and a godfather to keep in line. Voldemort will have to wait his turn.
Relationships: Goblins & Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Hogwarts Staff & Harry Potter, Hogwarts Students & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Harry Potter
Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993852
Comments: 406
Kudos: 1871





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, and another in my series of fics that includes, so far, “Music in the Mountains,” “In Their Own Secret Tongues He Spoke,” “The Dragon-Headed Door,” and “More Marvellous-Cunning Than Mortal Man’s Pondering.” Don’t try to start with this one, or you’ll be seriously confused. The title is a slightly changed line from Tolkien’s poem “The Horns of Ylmir,” which is quoted below. The section titles also come from this poem.

_Twas Ylmir, Lord of Waters, with all-stilling hand that made  
Unconquerable harmonies, that the roaring sea obeyed,  
That its waters poured off and Earth heaved her glistening shoulders again  
Naked up into the airs and cloudrifts and sea-going rain…_

_Hand That Made_

“Mr. Potter, I wanted to invite you to my office.”

Harry halts on the stairs and looks up at Dumbledore. He has a slightly frazzled look on his face and his hands clenched, his eyes darting around. Harry sighs. It seems as though he perhaps told Blackeye about Dumbledore’s problems too late. If she’s been tending to him for almost a month and this is what’s happening, then Dumbledore probably needs more help than she can give him.

But then Harry chides himself. That’s not having faith in a Healer who can do incredible things. And a deadly insult, besides.

“No, thanks.”

Dumbledore’s eyes stop darting and come to settle on him, almost staring. “Excuse me?”

“No, thanks,” Harry repeats, more slowly this time. “I don’t want to come to your office.”

Dumbledore leans forwards. Harry watches him, but doesn’t move. Dumbledore ends up with his nose a few centimeters away from Harry’s. Harry contemplates cutting it off, as he would if another goblin did that, but Blackeye wouldn’t like it very much if Harry harmed her patient.

“It was not a question,” Dumbledore whispers.

“No, it was an invitation. That’s why I said thank you. But I’m also free to say no.”

Dumbledore just seems so bewildered that Harry feels sorry for him. He sighs and pats the man’s shoulder. “I think you need to talk to Blackeye some more. You aren’t getting the kind of sleep you need, and I know she would want—”

“It’s because of you and your precious goblin Healer that I’m like this!” Dumbledore shouts, waving his hands around.

Harry is glad that it’s early in the morning and they’re in the middle of a staircase that’s fairly far away from the towers, even if Dumbledore _is_ keeping him from his exercise routine. That means they’re not in front of witnesses and he doesn’t have to kill the man right away to defend Blackeye’s honor as a Healer.

He fixes his sternest, most patient gaze on Dumbledore and says, “What do you mean?”

“She’s haunting me at every turn!” Dumbledore hisses, bending close to Harry again. His nose needs cleaning, Harry notes. There are a lot of hairs there. Blackeye must not have noticed yet, or she would have done something about them. “She tells me to go to sleep, to eat full meals, to spend more time meditating! And she wants me to _talk about my past_!”

“But those are the things you need to take good care of yourself, sir. Do you mean you weren’t sleeping or eating full meals before?”

“Of course I was!”

“Then why are you so upset now?”

“I am _the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the Chief Warlock!_ I cannot be ordered about like a disobedient schoolboy!”

“She’s ordering you about as a patient, though, not a schoolboy. She would have handed you over to someone else if she thought you were deficient in your education. She’s a Healer, not a teacher.”

Harry has to admit to himself that Blackeye probably _does_ think that Dumbledore is deficient in his education, like almost all humans. But it wouldn’t be polite to say it aloud.

Dumbledore utters a short scream and stomps off in the direction of his office. Harry looks after him with some pity. He must have been even worse off than Harry thought, or he wouldn’t be reacting to eating and sleeping like this. He wasn’t taking good care of himself at _all_.

And now Harry needs to go write Blackeye a letter about how Dumbledore needs to clean inside his nose, because he would find himself on the sharp edge of an axe if Blackeye found out that he knew and didn’t tell her. The fact that she would heal him afterwards isn’t that much comfort.

*

Someone clears his throat loudly when Harry is studying in the library with Ginny and Luna.

Harry looks up. It’s Igor Karkaroff, he sees, the Headmaster of Durmstrang. Harry nods to him. He thinks the man is ridiculous for not heeding the warning Harry sent him that he would do his very best to disrupt the Tri-Wizard Tournament and not taking the Durmstrang students out of it while he still could, but Harry doesn’t have anything against him _personally_. “Hello. Did you need something?”

“I was _wondering_ ,” Karkaroff says slowly, as if he doesn’t speak English well, “what is under the _lake._ ”

“Oh.” Harry thinks about it. He hasn’t spent a lot of time around the lake or the merpeople there, because they don’t have any close alliances with the goblins. Beings that live under the water and can’t find an easy way into underground lakes like small fish don’t, generally. But he’s sure there’s a village down there, because he’s seen some of them surface sometimes. “A merfolk village, I think. And a lot of mud. And the Giant Squid, of course.”

Karkaroff stares at him. Harry stares back. “That’s all I know personally,” he adds. “If you want to know from someone who probably spends a lot of time around the merfolk, you could talk to Hagrid. I think he probably knows all the fish in the lake, and the Squid.”

“No,” Karkaroff says, and clears his throat again. Maybe he has a cold instead. “I mean that I am _wondering_ what _will be_ under the lake.”

Harry shakes his head. “Sorry, I don’t know that much about the seasonal fluctuations.”

Karkaroff utters a short scream and stomps out of the library. Harry looks back at Ginny and Luna and shrugs. “What do you think that was about?”

“Well, perhaps he has Mermish ancestry that he’s worried about, and wants to make sure that the goblins won’t make war on him if they declare war on the merfolk for some reason,” Luna offers.

Harry nods. That makes more sense than Karkaroff just thinking Harry would know what was under the lake when he’s a goblin, not a merperson. He’ll write to Toothsplitter and ask her to inquire around about the likelihood of war with the merfolk. Maybe he can reassure Karkaroff that they’re currently at peace.

*

“Mr. Potter.”

Harry is coming out of Charms when Crouch comes to find him. Harry lets his hands rest lightly on his daggers. He _is_ ins a blood feud with the man, after all. Crouch so far hasn’t shown any sign of pursuing it the way he really should, but Harry wants to be ready.

Crouch’s smile is fixed and waxy. “Do you have a few minutes?”

Normally Harry would say no, but his next class is Potions, and honestly, he doesn’t mind being a few minutes late to it. Maybe that will finally be the insult that will cause Snape to duel him. Harry would like to take care of that particular problem permanently.

“Sure,” he says, and leans against the wall next to him. “Are you going to cancel the Tournament now?”

“Wh—no. I am here to ask you to reconsider your actions against the Tournament and your commitment to disrupt its tasks.”

Harry shakes his head. “No. Is that all? I probably should get to Potions, then.” He’s sad that the delay hasn’t lasted longer. Snape is going to overlook this one.

“But I need you to reconsider it!”

“You had your chance to avoid this when I first declared the blood feud,” Harry reminds him, with a bored sigh. He keeps walking, and Crouch patters along next to him. Humans are so _boring_ most of the time. Their looks of incomprehension about simple things can be funny, but Harry gets tired of them, too. “A weregild or a duel is all it would have taken. And you were rude and said you didn’t duel children. So we’re in a blood feud.”

Crouch looks a few seconds away from hyperventilating. Harry eyes him critically, but honestly, someone a goblin has declared a blood feud with is someone whom a goblin Healer is unlikely to treat, unless he’s literally bleeding to death in front of her. So Harry doesn’t need to tell Blackeye about Crouch.

“I am going to make you _pay_ for this,” Crouch finally whispered.

Harry smiled. “Are we going to duel?”

Crouch spins around to face him. “You know what?” he asks, spots of color standing out on his cheeks. “ _Yes_. Yes, you little brat, we _are._ I demand satisfaction. We will meet at noon on Saturday of this week, here on the Hogwarts grounds, near the lake, and duel.”

Normally, Crouch wouldn’t have the privilege of setting both time and place, as the human who should have delivered a weregild or accepted a duel already, but Harry is happy to waive a few of his privileges. “All right. I’ll be there.”

Crouch lifts his head and stalks off. At least he doesn’t stomp, the way Karkaroff and Dumbledore did. Harry keeps smiling all the way to class.

Snape takes points from Ravenclaw for the smile, but he doesn’t offer to duel Harry, and in the end, Harry is relieved. He already has one to prepare for. Two would be doable, but he wants to give his full attention to destroying both the man who put his godfather in prison without a trial, and the professor who keeps threatening and bullying Harry’s friends and other people who don’t deserve it.

_My Heart Beneath His Spell_

“Thanks for coming, Sirius.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. How often do I get to attend a duel for my honor?”

Harry grins at Sirius as they walk across the Hogwarts grounds towards the lake. The snow crunches crisply under their feet, and Harry wonders if Crouch will try to use that to his advantage somehow. He supposes it depends on the kind of training Crouch has in fighting on uncertain terrain, and the kind of Transfiguration and Charms he might practice.

It’s his first _official_ duel. Harry smiles even more widely as excitement zips up his spine.

“Do you think he’ll show?”

Harry snorts as they slow to a stop beside the lake. “Well, we’re early. And besides, if he doesn’t, then I get to tell everyone he’s a coward.”

“I thought you thought that anyway.” Sirius lounges on air and looks around with a smug smile, but also a wistful one, as though he’s remembering things that he can never have again.

“Yes, but this time I would get to say it’s official. You don’t go around saying that most of the time about someone you declared a blood feud on, you know. You just try your best to destroy them.”

Sirius sighs. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand goblin culture.”

Harry pats his elbow. “You don’t have to. You’re not a goblin—oh, Sirius, there was something I was meaning to ask you.”

“Sure.” Sirius looks at him expectantly, though he also eyes the school as if he expects Crouch to emerge soon.

“Where did you get that bruise on your neck? I have to know if I need to duel the person who gave it to you, too.”

Sirius blushes so bright red that that tells Harry the answer even before his hand moves defensively to cover the bruise. “I—it doesn’t hurt, or I would have healed it by now,” Sirius says, trying to make his voice fierce.

Harry grins. “I would still have had to duel someone if they’d hurt you and you didn’t take revenge, but if it’s from someone you’re having sex with, then that’s all right.”

Sirius blushes brightly enough to hide the bruise this time, and shakes his head. “You’re an unnerving person.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, beaming. That’s something most warrior goblins don’t hear until they’re seventy-five, at least.

Sirius rolls his eyes, but then turns his head and whistles sharply. “It looks like Crouch thought he should bring an entourage to this.”

Harry turns lightly on his toes, and sees Crouch striding down from the castle with Professor Moody close to him, and Ludo Bagman, and then the other judges of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Behind them are some students who are probably just curious about where the group of school heads are all going together, and a few professors, Snape among them.

Harry hopes Snape takes a lesson from what he’s about to do, and yet, he also doesn’t. That might keep the man from dueling Harry himself.

Crouch comes to a halt beside the lake and sneers at Harry for a moment. Then he says, “We must agree on the stakes for the duel.”

Harry blinks. “Like a wager?”

Crouch’s look turns condescending. “Of course. What do you get if you win, and what do you pay if you lose?”

“Your life, in both cases.” Harry is puzzled. He thought it was understood that _of course_ this is a deadly duel, what with a blood feud hanging in the balance.

Crouch moves a step backwards, staring at him, and Madame Maxime makes a little clucking sound. “You do not need to do that, Mr. Potter,” she says, her voice accented, although not as heavily as Karkaroff’s. “You can simply scar him, or bleed him, or take some of his money.”

“I offered him the chance for a weregild, and he passed it up. And he put my godfather in prison without a trial for twelve years. That’s an insult too great to be answered with any amount of scarring and bleeding.”

Crouch swallows loudly. “I accepted the duel under the impression that it would be to incapacitation.”

“Well, it _is._ Just the kind that makes sure you can’t be a nuisance again.”

Sirius is making sharp choking noises behind him. Harry ignores that. Unlike the others, Sirius is just overwhelmed with gratitude that someone would fight to the death for his honor. Harry can understand that.

Crouch looks on the edge of gibbering. Harry stares at him. How has been in a blood feud with this man for half a year and yet Crouch hasn’t looked up anything about what it means? How has he _survived_ this long?

“Mr. Crouch is human, and not goblin.” That’s Dumbledore stepping forwards and trying to make it sound reasonable. “He would not want to fight to the death.”

“Of course not.” Crouch is nodding haughtily now. “I wouldn’t want to kill Mr. Potter and deprive the magical world of its hero.”

“Well, I have a basilisk-fang dagger. I might kill _you._ ”

Harry is trying to be reasonable, too, but that just makes everyone except Sirius leap back from him in a wide circle. Harry frowns. He _knows_ that some of them knew.

He catches Luna’s eye—she’s among the students who’ve wandered down from the castle—and she waves at him, then shrugs. She doesn’t have any more answers than he does.

“I will not fight a child armed with a basilisk-fang dagger,” Crouch says in a high-pitched voice.

“Do you want me to take an Aging Potion?” Harry offers.

Crouch turns and runs up the path back to the castle. Harry rolls his eyes and puts his daggers away. It seems he’ll have to continue with his pursuit of the blood feud by destroying the Tournament, which means nothing has changed and Crouch shouldn’t have asked for a duel in the first place.

The confused crowd drifts away. Harry sighs and turns to Sirius while Luna comes up to stand beside him. “Sorry, Sirius. I reckon you won’t get to see me fight for your honor after all.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Harry.” Sirius ruffles his hair. “Truth be told, it would probably have been an unfair fight. Look how much of a coward Crouch is. I know you want to gain honor by defeating honorable enemies, not ones who run away at the least little reminder of reality.”

Harry beams at his godfather. Sirius might say that he doesn’t understand goblin culture, but the most important things, he obviously gets.

_Subtly, Magic_

“Karkaroff!” Harry calls, when he sees the Durmstrang Headmaster walking down the corridor ahead of him. “I wanted to tell you that there’s no war planned between the merfolk and the goblins.”

Karkaroff turns around. Harry thought he would look relieved, since he’s been mentioning the lake in louder and louder tones lately, as if trying to hint something to Harry. Then again, so has Madame Maxime, and Harry is sure _she_ has no merfolk heritage. Merfolk and giants really don’t get along.

However, Karkaroff is frowning. “What are you on about, little boy?”

The stones grumble under Harry’s feet, ready to open and trap Karkaroff like they trapped Snape last year if that’s what Harry wants. Harry quiets them with a little movement of his boot. Karkaroff hasn’t done anything wrong. Probably merfolk don’t see references to size as an insult, since their young are born _tiny_.

“You keep talking about the lake, and what’s under it. I knew that you were probably worried about a war between the merfolk and the goblins. I just wanted to let you know that my people aren’t planning any attack on yours, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Karkaroff makes a small whistling sound in his throat. “You think I have merfolk heritage?”

“Well, yes. It’s hard to see, so I thought it might be several generations back. But I think it’s good that you still feel so strongly connected to your people.”

Karkaroff turns and wanders away, looking dazed. Harry smiles a little. He hopes that Karkaroff doesn’t think he’s going to go around blurting anything about merfolk heritage to anyone. Harry is good at keeping secrets.

And knowing that Karkaroff feels such a strong connection to a non-human culture makes Harry like him, just a little.

*

“Um, Harry? Can I talk to you?”

Harry blinks and looks up. Terry Boot is standing in front of his bed in the Ravenclaw fourth-year boys’ room, blushing so brightly that Harry is reminded of Sirius and his face on the day Harry didn’t fight a duel for him. “Sure.” Harry shrugs and puts Toothsplitter’s letter aside. He’s keeping up his lessons on the Argent Ocean, but he’s already read this one several times to absorb the complexities, and putting it off for another hour won’t make a difference. “What is it?”

“I—there’s this girl I like,” Terry blurts. “I want to impress her, but I don’t know _how._ ”

“Is she a goblin?” That’s the only reason Harry can imagine Terry approaching him.

“N-no. I just—I don’t have a lot of wealth or power, but I thought I could impress her by showing how well objects obey me.”

Harry frowns a little at him. “You can show her how to listen to them, but you can’t talk about them _obeying_ you. It’s a partnership.” His bed shifts beneath him in agreement. “So you can show off to her, but only if they agree.”

“Can you think of something that will look impressive?”

“Hm.” Harry tilts his head. “Is she a warrior, or a smith, or a healer, or a teacher, or—”

“She’s another _student,_ Harry.”

“But she has to have some ambition, right? She wants to be something? What does she want to be? That’s really the only kind of advice I can offer,” Harry adds, when Terry looks at him uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know any goblin girl who doesn’t want to be something.”

“I hope she wants to be my girlfriend.”

They look at each other across what feels like a gulf to Harry, and finally he nods and says, “Well, I can tell you how to ask the seeds of ancient flowers to bloom and rise through the stone. She might like that.” He adds it a little doubtfully. He knows Luna would, but that’s because she loves plants of all kinds, not because she’s a human girl. And Ginny probably would, but that’s because she’s picking up intently on Harry’s lessons about listening, and practicing with plants.

Terry smiles. “I think she would like that.”

Harry just hopes she does. There’s so much about being human he doesn’t know, and he is curious to learn more, but it also seems that a lot of humans are cowards and unaware of most of the world around them. That’s a price Harry won’t pay just to understand them better.

_The Great Grey Waters Heaving_

Harry was vaguely aware that the Second Task was coming up, but he didn’t manage to learn what it was about this time, unlike with the dragons, where he knew. That’s all right. He goes to bed on the evening before convinced that he’ll get enough clues in the morning.

He does, when he walks into the Great Hall and Ginny immediately runs up to him, waving her arms.

“They took Luna!”

Harry’s daggers are in his hands before he can think about it. “Who took her?” he demands softly. Whoever it is, they’re going to bloody regret it.

Ginny stops, panting so hard that she can’t catch her breath. Harry conjures a glass of water for her, and Ginny takes it and gulps it, then goes on rapidly. “I saw Luna going up to the Headmaster’s office last night, and I was worried, because she didn’t seem like she would have a reason to go up there, so I followed her. And I listened at the door. I couldn’t really hear, but the door told me what it was hearing.” She stops and bites her lip as if she thinks Harry might disapprove of that.

Harry smiles at her. “That’s wonderful that you’ve come so far. What did they say about Luna?’

“They said that all the Champions would have to go retrieve someone who was lost. Someone precious to them. And they talked about the lake—”

Harry feels his eyes widen. _That_ was what Karkaroff was trying to get across to him! Harry feels like a fool. Then again, Karkaroff was probably bound by his Mermish heritage not to talk about it in clearer terms.

“They’re underneath the lake,” Ginny whispers, leaning towards him. “Luna and the Chang girl Diggory is dating and Hermione Granger Krum went to the Yule Ball with. The door wasn’t as sure about the hostage they have for Delacour. Someone related to her, I think. I didn’t recognize the name.”

She straightens up and looks a little desperately at him. “I tried to find you last night to tell you, but the Ravenclaw door asked a riddle I could answer and it wouldn’t let me in. And the stones…I _tried,_ but I couldn’t get them to carry a comprehensible message to you.”

“It’s all right, Ginny,” Harry says, patting her shoulder. He was out of Hogwarts last night, meeting Toothsplitter in a tunnel that runs to the Argent Ocean so that he could continue with his practice. The stones wouldn’t know how to reach him if someone who’s not very skilled in speaking told him to find him in his bed. Stones are very literal sometimes. If he wasn’t in his bed, it wouldn’t occur to them to look elsewhere.

“No, it’s not! They have her!”

“But we’re going to get her back,” Harry says confidently, and walks out of the Great Hall and towards the lake. Some people are hurrying after him, although Harry knows that it isn’t the official start of the Task yet. That doesn’t matter, though. He doesn’t want Luna to be under the water for longer than necessary.

And he still has to disrupt the Task.

He marches to the edge of the lake and kneels down to listen to the sighing of the snow along the edge. It takes him a while to pick apart its language from the rumble of the earth and the swish of the water; he’s still not as good at listening to different forms of water as he is stones, metal, and objects that people make. But in the end, he has it, and only a few curious people are standing around him. The rest probably went back into Hogwarts when they didn’t see him doing anything they thought was interesting.

The snow perks up when Harry asks it politely, “Can you please tell me where my friend is under the water?” He could have asked himself, but the lake feels hostile. Maybe it was charmed to feel that way, or maybe it’s because there are merfolk who don’t like goblins living in it.

The snow reaches down to the water, which is cold enough and kin enough to the snow to want to answer its questions. The answer comes back. Luna is tied with a rope to a statue of some kind under the water, and there are bubbles floating from her mouth.

The water regards that detail as important because the air is disrupting its currents, but Harry is relieved. Luna is alive.

If she was dead…

Harry shakes his head as he stands up. He would have to bathe Hogwarts in blood and vengeance, and he doesn’t want to do that. There are younger students who would be traumatized.

He stands in one place for a long moment, his eyes closed, and then he begins to sing.

The song is a variation on some of the ones that he and Toothsplitter have been practicing with the Argent Ocean. Unlike the Argent Ocean, the lake is not a sea of molten silver mixed with water and the powers of goblins’ enemies, but it is still the dwelling of an enemy, and Harry needs to understand and soothe their hatred.

His song is a clumsy, faltering thing. Harry sighs in his head as he sings it, the skittering low notes and the dancing high ones. The one thing he most regrets about not being born a goblin in body is the lack of a real goblin voice.

He will just have to do the best he can to make up for it in other ways.

He has barely finished singing when the waters heave, and a woman’s head peeks out. She’s wearing shells woven into her shining green hair, and her bright yellow eyes peer hard at him. Her scaled, clawed hands rest on the snowy shore with no sign of discomfort, but then again, she’s used to swimming through much colder water.

Harry bows at once. This is a _queen_ among her kind, and he’s surprised and impressed. There are very few merfolk who are at her level of enemies slain and waters cleft and captured and journeys made, and he never expected to attract their level of attention.

The woman sings to him in Mermish, but unfortunately, it sounds like screeching above the water. Harry shakes his head at her regretfully, casts a Bubble-Head Charm on himself, and thrusts his head underneath the surface.

The queen floats down to his level and repeats herself in a lovely, ringing tone.

“ _The children are here, your Headmasters brought them down,_  
 _They have spells on them to make sure they don’t drown._  
 _Champions have an hour to descend and find them,_  
 _Battle our soldiers, and cut the ropes that bind them._  
 _You ask us to violate our honor by setting them free._  
 _I grieve for your own grief, but this cannot be._ ”

Harry nods. He can see how, once honor is involved, the merfolk would decide that it wouldn’t be wise of them to break the contract. But he begins another song, and this time, he twines it with images of merfolk swimming beside carefully chosen goblins, making an alliance, and the fact that he’s in a blood feud with one of the men who’s running the Tournament, and at war with another.

The queen’s eyes widen as he sings more of it, and implies images of friendship and how they drew one of his friends into this conflict, against all honor, when she isn’t a goblin and never did anything to them. Then the queen begins to hum, her voice skittering at last into the noise of glass baubles floating in water.

“ _Honor violated must be replaced by that unbroken._  
 _Your feud was created before our word was spoken._  
 _I shall bring up your friend, and the other three._  
 _They are all part of the same contract, and shall go free._ ”

Harry bows again, deeply, to her from the shore, and draws himself back so that he’s sitting on it, where he dissipates the Bubble-Head Charm from around his face. The queen whirls and dives down into the water. Harry sees her shape vanishing murkily before he loses sight of her altogether, the lake, which was calmed by her presence, closing in again and radiating more hostility at him.

“What was that about?” Ginny asks anxiously.

Harry starts. Of course. She probably didn’t understand a word, since she didn’t have her head under the water and doesn’t know the songs to calm the Argent Ocean. “Sorry, Ginny, I didn’t mean to leave you out. Luna and the others were under the water as part of a contract that the Tournament judges had with the merfolk. They didn’t want to break the contract because it would violate their honor, but I told them their queen I had the prior claim on the Tournament judges’ honor because of my blood feud and the war against Dumbledore. She’s going to get them now.”

“Wow.” Ginny peers at the lake again. “That was their _queen_?”

Harry laughs. “Yeah. Why do you sound so surprised? Have you seen a lot of queens to compare her to?”

“No. Just—she looked rough and wild. More like a warrior queen than a beautiful one.” Ginny hesitates. “More like someone I would want to be.”

“She _is_ a warrior queen, but also a water-cleaving one. Merfolk royalty has to make long journeys underwater, and create temporary waterways across the land, from one lake or sea to another, to show that they have mastery of the land, too. She’s done a lot.”

Ginny hugs her knees and smiles. Harry grins. If Ginny turns out to be the girl Terry likes, then Harry can at least tell Terry that Ginny definitely wants to be a warrior.

The hostages come floating to the surface of the lake a few minutes later, the torn ropes trialing behind them. Harry recasts the Bubble-Head Charm and ducks his head under the water to thank the queen with a warbling song twisting together images of friendship and thanks like kelp. He owes them a debt.

The queen lays a hand across his and nods to the mighty-tailed warriors floating behind her, who grip spears and nets and watch Harry closely.

“ _My warriors wished to see the one who convinced me_  
 _To be sure that he had not wrongly menaced me._  
 _They wish someday to test your strength against theirs,_  
 _A friendly duel that both teaches and spares._ ”

Harry nods to the warriors. He has other duels to consider right now, but he would be happy to come underwater and meet them. Or perhaps their queen, or other royalty if they have them, can construct a way to the rivers in the Realm of Song.

The warriors nod back, and finally relax. They swim down into the depths of the lake, and Harry withdraws his head from the water to find Ginny rubbing life back into Luna’s limbs and a few professors conjuring warm towels for the other hostages—Chang, Granger, and a little silver-haired girl who’s probably part-Veela. Harry politely averts his eyes from her unbound hair.

He notices the judges, then, standing around on the lakeshore and staring at them helplessly. Crouch is purple in the face, Bagman is pale, Dumbledore has his hands over his eyes, Madame Maxime’s face is impossible to read, and Karkaroff is just staring around.

Harry smiles at Karkaroff. “You’ll be happy to know that there isn’t a possibly of war between the merfolk and the goblins. Just a friendly duel so that I can show the warriors of the queen what I might have done if I’d actually gone under the water.”

Karkaroff utters a little shriek and stomps off.

Harry frowns thoughtfully. Is that part of the man’s merfolk heritage? He does it so often.

On the other hand, Dumbledore does it, too. Harry is pretty sure Dumbledore doesn’t have merfolk heritage.

 _Another thing for me to learn,_ Harry thinks, and goes over to make sure that Luna is all right. _Good thing this is a school._


	2. Chapter 2

_Were Tossed in Anger_

“I really do need you to come to my office, Harry. It’s important.”

“All right. What is it about?”

“Nonsense.”

Harry starts and looks over his shoulder. He didn’t think that anyone was observing his meeting with Dumbledore in the middle of this staircase that leads down from the Ravenclaw Tower—most of the other students are already in the Great Hall for lunch—but Professor McGonagall is climbing towards them. She has a thin mouth and a glare for Dumbledore as she halts next to Harry’s shoulder.

“You know very well it’s not nonsense, Minerva.”

Dumbledore sounds injured, but Professor McGonagall only shakes her head at him. “Not the entire concept, Albus, but the way that you want to go about dragging young Harry into the war? It is.”

Harry nods. If this is about a human war, then he is too young by human standards to fight in it. Not by goblin standards, but, well, they won’t even face him in duels or let him use his favored weapons on a regular basis. Harry thinks that means that humans probably won’t let him participate in their wars, either.

“He is—” Dumbledore’s eyes dart in circles as if Blackeye is going to come around the corner and pounce on him for not eating enough. That reminds Harry, and he squints hard. It looks like Dumbledore’s nose is cleaner. He smiles. “You know what he is, Minerva.”

“I know what you want him to be,” Professor McGonagall corrects firmly. “We need to let Mr. Potter make the ultimate choice.” She turns to Harry. “Mr. Potter, the Headmaster wants to know if you’ve had any visions from You-Know-Who.”

“ _Minerva._ ”

“No.” Harry frowns. “How would he get them to me? Through a vial of memories in the post? I’m not telepathic, so he can’t send them to me that way.”

Professor McGonagall’s lips are twitching for some reason. “Are there goblins who are telepathic?”

“Oh, yes, some of the deep-singers.” Harry shrugs a little. “And a few of the ones who have to deal with humans regularly. They usually only spend part of a day in Gringotts each, though. No offense, but the twisty way humans think gives them a headache.”

“No one ever told me there were telepathic goblins.”

Dumbledore sounds appalled. Harry blinks at him. “Did you ask?”

Dumbledore makes a little shriek and stomps off. Harry turns to Professor McGonagall to ask if _she_ knows anything about why people do that and if it’s only the ones with Mermish heritage, but she’s regarding Harry seriously.

“The Headmaster thinks that you might be getting visions from You-Know-Who because he believes that you share a connection with—that monster through your scar.” She tilts her head to bend down and look a little at Harry’s.

“Oh, is this about the piece of soul I was carrying around in my scar for a while? Don’t worry, Blackeye took care of that _years_ ago. And I did tell the Headmaster about that my first year at the school,” Harry adds, wondering if Dumbledore has forgotten. He’s an old man for a human, he might have done. “But no, I don’t remember having a vision or nightmare of any kind since then.”

Professor McGonagall’s eyes are very wide. “I see,” she says faintly. “I—yes, you did tell us about the piece of soul that the goblins removed from behind your scar.”

Harry smiles. At least _she_ bothered to remember. “So I don’t really think a connection exists between me and Voldemort anymore. At least, not that way. I owe him for his minion betraying my parents and my godfather having to spend twelve years in prison, but that’s a different kind of thing.”

Professor McGonagall appears to be bracing herself. “There is something else, too, Mr. Potter. Something you should know.”

“What?”

Professor McGonagall sighs and stares at him, but also lowers her voice, as if she’s worried about someone looking out from the portraits. “You are the subject of a prophecy that says you are the only one who can defeat You-Know-Who. I don’t know the exact wording of the prophecy. Albus hasn’t shared that with me. But I know that he does believe it, and so must You-Know-Who, if he went after you and attacked your parents.”

Harry nods thoughtfully. He supposes that makes sense. It would explain Voldemort’s obsession with him, and Dumbledore’s desperation that Harry won’t listen to him and be a human. Dumbledore might think that he’s like a general whose best soldier won’t follow his commands.

There’s only one problem.

“Goblins aren’t subject to prophecies,” he tells Professor McGonagall. “I can’t remember any story that talks about us acting in accordance with them.”

Professor McGonagall opens her mouth and then stands there with it stuck like that. Harry looks around in case someone is coming up the staircases who they don’t want to listen in, but there’s no one.

“You are—” Professor McGonagall says, and then stops and stares at him again.

“Not a goblin? Is that what you were going to say?” Harry sighs. “Professor McGonagall, I really _am_ a goblin in all the ways that matter. If I wasn’t, then surely I would find it easier to understand the lot of you and fit in with you, right?”

“The lot of us?”

“Humans. Instead, humans confuse me all the time, and I _know_ I confuse them.”

Professor McGonagall clucks her tongue in faint protest, but Harry knows that she can’t really argue, not when she’s seen the results for herself. “That doesn’t mean that someone who was born as a human and then raised as a goblin isn’t subject to a prophecy.”

Harry smiles. “That’s a good point. I’ll talk to my people and see what they think about it. It means that we might have to take it into account when we carry the war to Voldemort.”

“Aren’t you—Mr. Potter, you’re not upset about being the subject of this prophecy?”

“Well, like I said, I don’t know if I actually am. But even if I am, then I’m not going to be fighting alone. I have all my people behind me. And Luna and Ginny. And Sirius,” Harry adds, after thinking about it a bit. He’s not sure if Sirius should be allowed into the front lines of the fight or not. He’s an interesting duelist—Harry got to see him fighting some of the warriors this past summer—but he’s undisciplined, and he _did_ rush after Pettigrew like an idiot. They’ll have to make sure that Sirius can take orders and listen to other people before they ask him to fight with them.

Professor McGonagall’s face softens. “And you also have me.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” Harry smiles at her. “So let me ask you a question.”

“Yes?”

“Why do Dumbledore and Karkaroff make those little screams and stomp off so much? Is it because of Mermish heritage?”

*

“You do bring us interesting questions, young _amaraczh._ ”

Harry smiles and bows. This is the most notice he’s ever had from one of the lore-singers, the goblins who both keep history and investigate history for the answers to common problems. The goblin sitting in front of him, a hefty woman named Diamond with the jewels of her namesake hanging in her ears, slowly opens the gigantic tome lying in front of her on the coiled stone desk and begins to page through it.

Harry lets his eyes dart around the lore-singers’ cavern without rising from his bow. It’s painfully interesting. The coiled desks are everywhere, and the huge tomes, and the writhing blue lines on the walls that are the collaborations between the lore-singers and the stone-worms that live in these deeps and who can take years to answer one question. Harry longs to know what the blue lines say and how you can talk to a stone-worm.

But on the other hand, he’s also perfectly happy with his chosen careers of warrior and smith, and wouldn’t want to give them up to be a lore-singer. His voice probably isn’t right anyway.

“You may straighten up.”

Harry does, watching the lore-singer hopefully. Diamond is tracing the edges of more lines on a page made of flexible stone stretched thin, until light can shine through it, and sung to stay that way. She nods.

“There was one goblin who was subject to a prophecy,” she says. “He had a human wife, and she would otherwise have been destined to marry a Dark Lord to bring about peace. He stepped into the prophecy in her place, and dueled for her honor.”

“Did he win?”

“He did, although he was grievously wounded.” Diamond lays her neatly trimmed nails across the page and studies him. “You can ask for someone to take your place in the prophecy, speaker. Do you wish to?”

Harry shakes his head. “And miss the kind of honor that this could bring? If nothing else, this prophecy does confirm that I made the right choice to undertake warrior training.”

Toothsplitter might be disappointed to hear it, since she’s always wanted him to concentrate on being a smith. But there’s no reason that Harry can’t pursue the warrior training while he needs to, until the wars are over for the moment and Voldemort defeated, and then return to studying as a Master Smith after that.

Diamond nods a little. Although she’s not a warrior and so doesn’t think of fighting as the ultimate expression of honor, her eyes shine a little. “You must be what you must be. I am so glad that you have learned the lesson. Even some humans who marry into our clans do not do so.”

“It probably helps that I grew up with you from the time I was six years old,” Harry says, and sees Diamond reach for a small chisel to make a notation on the stone page.

“You have given us a new question to consider, that of age,” Diamond murmurs as she presses the chisel home, pauses for a moment, and then begins to scribe the runes that will hold the question as a matter for future research. “Go in peace, _amaraczh._ ”

Harry smiles at her and turns, leaving the cavern for the tunnels that will take him back to Hogwarts. His mind is whirling busily.

He may have to step up some of the training that he’s giving Ginny, and add lessons in tactics and strategy to those he’s already receiving. And he may have to speak with Dumbledore after all, although he’ll do his best not to let the man’s silliness get to him.

Dumbledore could have valuable information about Voldemort, though. There is always that.

*

“Voldemort cannot be defeated.”

“But I thought you believed he could. That’s what Professor McGonagall implied, since she said you believed in the prophecy.”

Dumbledore abruptly holds his hand up. Harry falls silent and waits as the professor stalks over to peer into the shadow behind a bookshelf.

“Are you all right?” Harry asks after a moment of that. Has Voldemort already sent spies into the Headmaster’s office or something?

“No goblin Healers,” Dumbledore says in a satisfied way, and then comes and sits down behind his desk again.

Harry is kind and doesn’t tell him that Blackeye doesn’t need shadows and hidden doors to enter his office. Now that she’s treated Dumbledore once, she has a connection with him, and Hogwarts is made of stone, anyway. That connection can function through stones, especially ones as friendly as the stones of Hogwarts are to goblins.

“Now.” Dumbledore clasps his hands together. They’re shaking a little. “I do believe in the prophecy insofar as it offers us a chance. What I mean is that he can’t be defeated _yet._ He has the Horcruxes—the pieces of soul lying about, I believe that you called them—tying him to life. There was the one in your scar, and there was the diary you destroyed. But there are others.”

“Well, I don’t see why I can’t destroy his wraith and then destroy the Horcruxes. My basilisk-fang dagger is pretty good at that.”

“How would you destroy his wraith?”

“Capture it in a box of pure diamond and lock it in a vault with goblets of pure crystal around it?”

Harry doesn’t mean to ask it as a question, but he’s a little startled that Dumbledore doesn’t seem to _know._ The goblins have dealt with more than one wizard who died and then attempted to enter the bank by possessing a descendant of theirs, and the like. There’s an established procedure to get rid of wraiths.

“Why would that work?”

“The diamond gives them dazzling facets that confuse them and break their connection to the outside world. Then the crystal goblets reinforce the reflection, and the goblet shape is the least congenial for any spirit to attempt to fasten onto. It keeps them from escaping the vault even if someone picks up the box. Gradually, the light from the goblets and the box wears down on them and breaks apart the darkness that carried them beyond death. You do have to keep a light shining in the vault at all times, but that’s a small price to pay.”

Dumbledore shakes his head a little. “I think Voldemort is too powerful for this.”

“I don’t think so. Blackeye got rid of the soul piece behind my scar with _no_ problem.”

“But that is only a piece of him, not the largest piece of soul.”

Harry shrugs a little. “With all due respect, the spirit I saw possessing Quirrell during my first year wasn’t powerful or impressive. He was more than a little mad. Even if we couldn’t destroy him, at least we can keep him trapped.”

“We must destroy his Horcruxes _first._ ”

Harry smiles politely. He recognizes the obsession on Dumbledore’s face. It’s the same kind of obsession that Fudge wore when he attempted to make the goblins bend to his will. Well, Harry will listen and help if he can, take Dumbledore’s help if it’s needed, and then act on his own, as usual.

“I don’t suppose that you know what they are?”

“He was obsessed with the history of Hogwarts. It makes sense that he would try to take and use Founders’ artifacts. Several of them have been missing for centuries.”

“You mean like the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?” Harry perks up. “The statue in our common room is still sad about that loss, even though she isn’t the actual human. It would be nice if we could get it back.”

“There is no _guarantee_ that the diadem is one of them.” Dumbledore’s nostrils are flaring, and he looks at Harry over his glasses. “And I forbid you to try and take the diadem on your own.”

“Take it…? I don’t think we know where it is, do we?”

“It is too dangerous for you.”

“I wasn’t going to take it, though. Not until know where it is. Or are you talking about destroying the Horcrux? I did pretty well with the diary.”

Dumbledore’s right eye is starting to twitch. “I _forbid_ you, Harry. The Horcruxes are not to be trifled with, and I don’t need a goblin getting in the way and costing us this war.”

Harry is so pleased to be acknowledged as a goblin that he lets the multiple insults in Dumbledore’s words slip past. “I promise I won’t look for it on my own. I just thought that the diadem might be one of them.”

“This war needs to proceed _exactly_ as I have planned it. We stand to lose it, and the world we love, otherwise—did you hear that?”

Harry listens. There’s the contented murmur of the desk in front of Dumbledore, and the crackle of the fire on the hearth, and the measured footfalls of Blackeye coming up the moving staircase. “Which?”

“There appears to be—”

Dumbledore leaps to his feet as the door of his office opens. Blackeye steps in, nods to Harry with the air of someone who isn’t surprised, and focuses on Dumbledore. “Did I or did I not tell you no stressful conversations today?”

“I was discussing the war with your apprentice!”

“Harry’s not an apprentice Healer.” Blackeye looks between the two of them with a frown. “Have you been overemphasizing your interest in my art, Harry?”

“No,” Harry says, as puzzled as she is.

“Then why does he think that? You were born human, you must know.”

“He’s _your_ patient.”

Harry quivers a little inside as he pushes back against Blackeye, who is one of the most terrifying goblins he knows, but she smiles a second later. “Well, that is true. And I believe that h should spend the rest of the day on bed rest.” She frowns at Dumbledore. “You aren’t as young as you used to be, of course.”

Ignoring her for the moment, Dumbledore blurts at Harry, “If you aren’t her apprentice, why did you turn her loose on me?”

“I only informed her of my concerns about you. You should take better care of your health. And your hygiene,” Harry adds, seeing the ink splotches on the Headmaster’s robes now that he’s standing up. Blackeye will have something to say about that. “I’m not her apprentice just because of that.”

“If you care about my _health_ , start acting like a _human_!”

“I do care about it,” Harry assures him. “But not enough to sacrifice my whole life and culture for it. Just enough to make sure that you have the care you need and deserve.”

Blackeye comes up to stand beside Harry, and Dumbledore backs away from her, making some delicate silver and crystal devices crash to the floor as he waves his wand around threateningly. “I am _not afraid_ to curse you!” Dumbledore yells.

Blackeye watches him critically for a moment, then says, “Yes, you are. Well, at least you have _some_ sense. Now, bed rest.” She nods to Harry, and he slips out of the office, more than relieved to be out of a place that is probably going to turn into an infirmary soon.

As he goes down the stairs, he hears someone knocking on the gargoyle that guards the bottom. He comes out and finds Professor Moody there.

“I think Dumbledore is a bit busy right now, sir,” Harry says. “But you can probably talk to him after his Healer lets him up from the bed rest.”

Moody mouths the words “bed rest,” looking perturbed, and then shakes his head. “You’re actually the one I wanted to talk to, Potter.”

“Oh?” Harry looks Moody over. He doesn’t have anything against the man. For a human, he’s a competent Defense professor, and even a decorated war veteran. It’s not his fault that he didn’t get to see a competent Healer for the leg and the eye.

“Yes.” Moody lowers his voice. “It’s about the Third Task.”

Harry pats Moody’s arm. “Don’t worry, sir. I’m going to be disrupting it, so it won’t happen.”

Moody sucks in a breath and holds it for a second. Then he releases it and says, “But wouldn’t it help you to know what it _is_?”

“Maybe? I don’t know for sure. I managed to disrupt the Second Task even though I didn’t know much about it beforehand.”

“You knew it would be held by the lake.”

“No, I was only asking around about the lake because Professor Karkaroff was worried there was going to be a war between the merfolk and the goblins. I wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be so I could relieve his anxieties.”

This time, Moody mouths the words “relieve his anxieties” to himself. Harry wonders if that’s part of his culture, too. Does he have non-human heritage, like Karkaroff? Harry doesn’t know why someone would hide it, but he’s coming to accept that humans usually do, unless they’re like Professor Flitwick or Professor Hagrid and can’t because of the way their body looks.

“Can you come to my office and we can talk about it?” Professor Moody finally asks, sounding a little desperate.

“Of course, professor. You only had to ask.” Harry smiles at him and trails after him. Moody stumps along ahead the whole way, so if he mouths some more words to himself, Harry can’t see what they are.

Maybe he can ask Blackeye what culture would lead humans to mouth words to themselves or utter a short scream and stomp off all the time. Professor McGonagall didn’t know.

*

Moody gives Harry a cup of tea that Harry sniffs and doesn’t drink. He doesn’t want to be impolite, but it smells terrible. Maybe Moody put some of the liquid that he’s always sipping from his hip flask into it.

Moody settles himself in a chair near the fireplace and stares at Harry from under lowered brows. Harry blinks at him and asks, “What did you want to see me about, Professor?”

“I said. The Third Task.”

“Yes, but humans are always lying and not saying what they really mean. So I thought it might be something else.” Harry sighs as he sees the scowl cross Moody’s face. “I’ve been rude again, haven’t I? Sorry, professor. But if you’re concerned about me, you don’t need to be, even though it’s nice of you. I’m going to destroy the Third Task the same way I destroyed the others.”

Moody sits with his hands working over each other. Harry finds himself studying the scars om Moody’s hands and arms. It’s hard to know what to think of them. A goblin warrior so scarred would accent them with magic to draw out the proof of his bravery, but a human might just be unlucky.

“I’m going to ask you to let the Third Task proceed as planned,” Moody says at last.

Harry blinks. “Why?”

“It’s very important to me.”

“Why?”

Moody’s scowl surfaces again. “Can’t you just accept what you’re told?”

“Oh, come on, even you should know better than that, and you’ve only had me in class a couple times of week for a few months.” Harry shakes his head. “It’s a matter of a blood feud, you see. Since Crouch imprisoned my godfather illegally—”

“Of course. I know the story. But I’ve never heard that goblins are devoid of compassion.”

“We’re not,” Harry says, more puzzled by the second. “But to have the amount of compassion necessary to cancel a blood feud, after I’ve already told my godfather that I’m fighting for his honor and all, I would have to know _why_. More than just a random human asking me. Although I’m sure that you’re a perfectly nice random human,” he adds, which he hopes makes him sound more polite.

Moody reaches down and rubs his wooden leg as if he wants to make a point. But whatever non-human culture is making him do that, Harry doesn’t know, so he waits, and Moody finally sighs explosively.

“We have reports of Death Eater activity around the Tournament,” he admits.

“Oh. Where? What kind?”

Moody made a huffing noise. “You think I’m going to tell a young—student that?”

“Well, you told me this so far. And if you want me to let the Third Task go ahead, it would have to be a pretty big reason why.”

“The first example,” Moody mutters, his voice sounding a little strangled, “is that your name came out of the Goblet of Fire.”

“But I put it there. I thought everyone knew that?” Harry tries to think back, and he’s pretty sure that Moody was in the Great Hall that day. Just about everyone was. And it’s not like Harry ever tried to keep it a secret. When Dumbledore announced that Harry would be the Champion for the Realm of Song, anyone who did think that Harry was somehow a second Champion for Hogwarts would have known better.

“Someone could have Confounded you and made you think that.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Moody is starting to look constipated. Harry watches him thoughtfully, and wonders if there’s a non-human culture that does that. Or maybe it’s just part of the general forgetfulness that seems to come along with being old. Dumbledore has that, too.

Or maybe the wound that must have taken out Moody’s original eye scrambled his brains.

“There’s also the fact that Karkaroff used to be a Death Eater, and some of his actions concerning the Tournament are—suspicious.”

“Huh,” Harry says. “I didn’t know Voldemort was that broad-minded.”

Moody flinches a little, although not like other people do at the name Voldemort, but apparently just out of surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I thought he was a pureblood bigot and a _human_ bigot. I didn’t know that he took humans with Mermish heritage into his service.”

Moody looks more than a bit lost. “Karkaroff doesn’t have Mermish heritage.”

“Then why was he asking me about a war between the merpeople and the goblins?” Harry says triumphantly.

Moody has no answer to that one, which Harry was pretty sure would be the case. He rubs a hand across his real eye, while his magical one whizzes around and around his head. Harry admires it. It seems pretty useful. He wouldn’t want to give up a regular eye to have one, though. A warrior needs as many advantage as he can get, and the magical eye wouldn’t provide enough of one.

“There’s also,” Moody says, his voice a little strained, “the Death Eater attack at the World Cup this past summer.”

Harry nods. He did hear about that. The World Cup was so small, with the goblins pulling their funding for it as part of the war, that it only lasted one day, but apparently some Death Eaters still dressed up in their silly robes and floated some people from Weasley’s family into the air, along with a few Muggles who happened to be around.

“But you aren’t concerned about that?” Moody’s voice cracks in what sounds like incredulity.

“Why should I be? That was the Quidditch World Cup, not the Tournament.”

Moody closes his regular eye and takes a long, deep breath that sounds like it’s meant to calm himself. Then he said, “I would consider it a personal favor if you would let the Third Task go ahead. It might be our only chance of catching those Death Eaters.”

Harry thinks about that. Then he says, “No.”

“Why _not_?”

“Well, to be honest, sir, I’ve heard about you. Your nickname,” Harry adds, when Moody gives him the blankest look yet. “You’re a bit paranoid. I can understand why, but it also means that you’re probably seeing things that aren’t there. Either the Death Eater activity isn’t taking place, since the examples you’ve given me aren’t real or aren’t connected to the Tournament, or it’s not going to be avoided by letting the Third Task go ahead.”

“I _promise_ you that there is a Death Eater close at hand even as we _speak_. I will swear a vow to you.”

“If you know who it is, why haven’t you captured them?”

“There are reasons.” Moody is apparently speaking entirely through his clenched teeth now. “Sometimes even _paranoid_ people like me can wait and watch so as not to endanger the success of a case.”

Harry nods. “Well, I wish you good luck with your case, sir. But I’m not going to end my feud with Mr. Crouch or stop trying to ruin the Tournament.”

“You little _brat._ ”

“Do you want to duel me?” Harry asks hopefully. He’d like that. Moody seems, from his reputation, like he would be a challenging opponent and not a coward.

“No. Get _out_.”

Moody’s face actually seems like it’s twisting beyond the normal confines, and he snatches his hip flask and guzzles from it. Harry sighs as he stands and walks out of the room. It’s very sad that Moody is an addict and probably delusional, but he can’t see telling Blackeye about him. She already has her hands full with Dumbledore.

Alerting St. Mungo’s wouldn’t be out of the question, though. Humans should take care of humans, and maybe they have more advanced spells now that could give Moody his leg back.

_Heard Them Wailing_

It turns out that the Third Task is an enormous hedge maze. Harry just waits until it’s almost done, the night before the Third Task, and then he goes out and talks to the plants that make up the maze.

They turn and quiver at him, and Harry smiles and strokes their leaves. They nestle under his touch. Harry wishes he’d brought Luna with him, but she announced that she had to go to sleep early tonight, to dream of the Heliopaths, Harry can understand the seriousness of that. Heliopaths depend on dreams to grow tall and strong.

“I was wondering,” Harry asks the hedges, “if you would be willing to sink back into the earth and destroy the maze for me? It’s a matter of honor.”

But the plants hiss and sway at him. They don’t care much about honor. One plant will strangle another if it can, or take up its sunlight, or grow in place of its seeds. Once they exist, they want to go on existing.

Harry shakes his head. “All right. But would you be willing to grow in a different _shape_?”

The leaves wrap around his fingers with interest.

*

“Mr. _Potter._ ”

Dumbledore is towering over him in wrath. Harry wants to say that Blackeye probably forbade him to do that, but he doesn’t get the chance. Dumbledore keeps spluttering, and the other Tournament judges are standing behind him on the pitch, where they brought Harry early this morning when someone saw the hedge maze.

At least they know now that it’s likely to be him. That’s progress. Harry is only sorry that he really did have to destroy the whole Tournament, instead of Crouch acting honorable and dueling him before this.

“Yes?” he asks, stretching his arms out. He notices Moody standing behind the Tournament judges and watching him intently, but he doesn’t care.

Dumbledore points a trembling finger at the hedge maze. Or what was the hedge maze. Harry follows his pointing finger, and smiles. Of course he knew what he would see, considering that he asked the plants to grow in that shape, but he hasn’t had the chance to look at it by daylight.

The plants have formed an enormous bow, the kind that would go on top of a present. Harry admires the sheen of the leaves and the complications of the loops. He didn’t tell them to do that. But that’s what happens when you _ask,_ something that escapes most wizards most of the time.

“We cannot hold the Third Task,” Dumbledore states.

“Yes, I know. I didn’t want you to.”

Dumbledore turns red, then purple. At least he doesn’t utter the short shriek and stomp off this time. Harry waits patiently to see what’s going to happen.

What happens is a large golden cup Levitating towards him. Harry turns to meet it. He’s ready to speak to it and ask what’s happening, but he hears its voice before he can, so clear that it sounds like Gobbledegook words.

_Danger! Danger! Don’t touch!_

Harry can’t respect that, though. The cup is weeping, frantic with pain. Someone’s cast spells on it to make it go against its purpose, and he can’t leave it there to suffer. It was heart-rending enough that he couldn’t save the Goblet of Fire earlier in the year.

He reaches out and brushes his fingers down the side.

As a terrible pulling sensation grabs at him and heaves him through space and nothingness, Harry clutches the cup tight with one hand, and the hilt of his basilisk-fang dagger with the other. He’s ready, no matter what happens.

And whoever did this is going to find out what it means to capture a goblin warrior-in-training.


	3. Chapter 3

_From Battle Unto Battle_

Harry lands lightly in the middle of a large open space. He looks around and finds the most unexpected stone monuments around him. He frowns. Is this a _graveyard_?

Why would someone want to fight in a graveyard?

He does smile a little when he hears someone Apparate into place behind him and turns around to see Professor Moody standing there. “Did you want to duel me somewhere far away from Hogwarts where no one could interfere?” he asks.

Moody stares at him, grunts, and shakes his hand. Then he gestures with his wand, and the cup tears itself away from Harry’s grip and crashes into a nearby headstone.

Harry narrows his eyes. “You’ll pay for hurting both the cup and the stone.”

Moody appears to be ignoring him now. He reaches behind a stone and retrieves something wrapped in a thick black cloth, tenderly unwrapping it. Harry cranes his neck. Inside is what looks like an incredibly ugly baby, with thick limbs and blazing red eyes.

“I’m sorry to tell you,” Harry lets Moody know, “but that’s not going to be a handsome human when it grows up. Unless it’s supposed to be a kelpie or something like that?’ The little thing is rather handsome for a kelpie.

“Potter.” Moody glares at him, his magical eye whizzing around. “Shut up.” Then he tears the magical eye from his face and throws it away.

“If you don’t want that anymore, can I have it?” Harry’s sure he can think of something to forge that would use a human magical eye.

Moody continues ignoring him as he sits down on a large gravestone and tears off his wooden leg. Harry is beginning to doubt his sanity. Obviously, if Moody fancies himself the superior warrior, then he would want to do something to make the fight fairer, but the leg _and_ the eye both are a bit much.

“Harry Potter,” the kelpie-child hisses, and Harry turns back to it. The red eyes seem to be trying to stare a hole through him, but that doesn’t work, which apparently frustrates the creature. “I will _use_ you and I will _destroy_ you.”

“I don’t see how. You can’t even walk without help.”

Moody groans and shakes, and Harry glances up in time to see his face twist and pop. A regular eye grows in the place of his discarded one, and he limps to his feet with a new leg sprouting in the place of the wooden one, too. Harry is about to ask why he wears the accessories at all if he could do this any time, but then “Moody” faces him, grinning, and he realizes that this is a different person altogether.

“Polyjuice,” Harry realizes. “Your hip flask was full of Polyjuice Potion.”

The man grins and giggles at him, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. Harry looks hard, but he doesn’t see any hint of a fork. This is apparently a regular human who’s chosen to carry a baby kelpie around for some strange reason. “You can be smart after all, little Potter.” He points a gnarled, twisted wand that doesn’t look much like Moody’s at Harry. “Now, shut up and be a good boy, and my lord will do you the honor of killing you himself.”

Harry blinks. “You look mental, but still. Why is your lord a kelpie?”

“I am not a _kelpie_ ,” the child-thing hisses.

Harry casts him a dubious glance. “Then you’re ugly for whatever you are. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s the way it is,” he adds, when he sees both Moody and the child-thing staring at him.

“I am Lord Voldemort!” the not-a-kelpie hisses.

“ _Really_?” Harry stares at him. “But how did you get anyone to follow you when you’re that size?”

“Barty, I grow tired of his whining. Bind him!” The not-a-kelpie makes a gesture with one stubby arm that causes the odd man who’s taken Moody’s place to bow deeply and take aim with his wand.

Harry jumps behind a headstone, and speaks to it. The stone bends and grows outwards in a shield, and Moody’s curse, which looks too dark a red to be a Stunner, impacts off it. Chips of stone fly outwards, and Harry winces. He didn’t mean to get the poor thing wounded.

“Imprison him! Bind him!”

Voldemort keeps shrieking, but Barty doesn’t have a good time trying to keep up with Harry. Harry dodges and rolls and hides whenever he can without wounding too many of the headstones. He’s also coming steadily closer to them, but they don’t seem to notice that.

Barty finally focuses on him as Harry pops out from behind a monument shaped like a human with spread wings—do Muggles know about humans with non-human heritage, then?—and smiles as he spins his wand between his fingers. “So eager to reach your destruction, little half-breed?”

Harry ignores that. It’s the kind of insult that people speak when they can’t think of anything better. Harry could come up with about sixteen off the top of his head for Barty and many more for Voldemort. They’re just deficient.

“If I’m to be destroyed, that’s my fate. But I’ll go down fighting,” Harry replies, and sprints towards Voldemort.

Barty turns to point his wand at him, his smile lazy with confidence, but it becomes a bit less lazy when Harry draws his basilisk-fang dagger.

“Master!” Barty screams, and joins the sprint towards Voldemort.

Harry is smaller and faster, though, and he gets there first. The child-thing’s mouth opens in a deep cry, and its tiny hand reaches out as if to grab Harry’s arm and stop the sweep of the dagger.

He’s too small, and Harry is too fast and, this time, too big. He stabs the basilisk fang directly through Voldemort’s chest, with conviction, the way he once stabbed the diary.

There’s a loud and sizzling hiss, as if Harry has plunged a hot blade too fast into the quench, and then Voldemort is screaming on two levels at once, a human voice overlaid with the language of snakes. Harry feels the dagger pass through the body and clang on the stones. He draws back, blinking, but makes sure to retain hold of the dagger. Not even sending Voldemort’s wraith into flight again would be worth losing it.

He watches the black stain spread up through Voldemort’s chest and smiles as it streaks like a crack towards those wide and staring red eyes. Voldemort flails his arms and makes pathetic, hissing squeaky noises in the moment before the crack encircles his neck and his head falls off.

The black goes on spreading, flaking the rest of his borrowed body to shreds. Harry jumps back and stands at the ready as the wraith flies out, remembering Quirrell, but this time, the shade shows no interest in attacking him. It blazes off in a smoky path across the sky.

Harry shakes his head, regretting that he wasn’t able to capture it, but then again, he would need the diamond box and the crystal goblets right away, or he might not have been able to subdue it. It could have possessed him. Harry is a good warrior on the physical battlefield, but he’s not sure he would win on the mental one he would have been facing.

“ _You_.”

Harry turns to face Barty. His face is insane with hatred. Harry wonders for a moment how he pretended to be Moody so well, and then shrugs it off. Well, Moody _was_ supposed to be paranoid and mental.

That reminds Harry that he wants to retrieve the magical eye and the wooden leg before he leaves, if he can. Somewhere is the real Moody who will presumably want them back.

“You,” Barty snaps again, stalking closer. “You fought my lord as a baby and when you were eleven and again _now_! I will destroy you for hurting him.”

“You want to duel, then?” Harry almost dances in place. Finally, a human who isn’t a coward!

“Yes.” Barty sets himself in what isn’t exactly a traditional dueling stance, but close to it. “Come here and meet your destruction, little brat.”

“You already promised that once before, and couldn’t deliver.” Harry gestures with his daggers, falling back into a defensive stance. “Come on, show me what you have.”

Barty laughs wildly. “Do you know how many more spells I know than you do?”

“No.”

Barty looks wrongfooted for only a second before he launches a spell like a twisting yellow corkscrew at Harry. Harry rolls underneath it and comes up closer to Barty the way he did when he was planning to take down Voldemort, his daggers snapping out.

But while Barty might not be all that smart—as proven by the fact that he wants to serve someone who looks a lot like a kelpie but isn’t one—he at least knows enough to avoid the basilisk-fang blade. He kicks Harry, and his hand hurts, although if Barty meant to make one of Harry’s weapons go flying, he doesn’t achieve it. He snarls and kicks out again, and Harry laughs softly and dodges around him.

“Your hand must hurt!”

“So must your pride.”

They’re close to each other now, tense, circling each other like leaves in an eddy, and Barty crouches and then reaches out and snatches Harry’s arm just beneath the dagger hilt in his left hand. Harry is impressed. He didn’t think someone human would try that much close contact.

“I have you,” Barty says, and presses his wand for a second against Harry’s side. “ _Crucio_!”

The pain grabs Harry and tosses him into a new realm of hurt, but although Harry screams, he retains his senses. His warrior training prepared him for something like this. You might have to concentrate through the pain of a broken limb, or worse, and you still have to be able to fight through it. The most important thing is winning, not the wounds you take along the way.

Harry is spasming, which makes it hard to hold the daggers. But he gets his feet underneath him, and he stands up. Barty’s mouth falls open in astonishment. He takes a step back, fumbling with his wand to produce something else.

Harry’s steel dagger cuts through the wand, stopping the curse abruptly. That means that his basilisk-fang dagger plunges further into Barty’s side than he’d meant it to. He’d only wanted to give him a light cut. That would be enough, with the venom implanted in the dagger, and still give him time to get out and away from range of a counterattack.

Barty screams, and spasms, and falls. The black winds through him a lot more slowly than it did the Voldemort-thing, but he obviously doesn’t have Horcruxes, because he dies in pain. Harry sighs as he squirms and writhes, and kneels down next to him, to at least give his enemy company in dying.

Barty rolls his eyes to look at him, and whispers, “You…bastard. Like my father.”

“Father?” Harry blinks, and then considers the similarity of Barty’s name and Crouch’s first name. Barty. Bartemius. And, well, they do look a little like each other when Harry squints and subtracts some of the age.

“You’re just like him.”

“No. I’m an honorable goblin. He’s someone who couldn’t even hold a duel to settle a blood feud.” Harry pats Barty’s arm where it’s not yet black. “But I promise that I’ll tell him you were more courageous than he was.”

Barty laughs, and shuts his eyes, muttering something about, “All I can expect,” and expires. Harry uses his wand to fold Barty’s blackened, swollen arms over his chest, while considering the matter. He hadn’t heard that Crouch had any children, which was part of the reason that the blood feud could be declared and pursued the way it was.

No, wait. He had the son who supposedly died in Azkaban years ago, for being a convicted Death Eater.

Harry sighs and looks down at Barty. “I’m sorry that it had to turn out like this. You were more courageous than your father, even if you were also madder than he was.” Harry can’t imagine much that pegs the man as more mental than following a disembodied wraith.

But in the meantime, Harry has Hogwarts to get back to, and some people, like Luna, who are probably frantic about his disappearance. He stands up, and looks around first for the magical eye and the wooden leg, then for the cup that Barty cast aside.

It’s lying near a headstone, still wailing in pain. Harry floats it over to him after tucking the eye into his pocket and slinging the wooden leg inside his shirt, and then casts the Levitation charm on Barty’s body. It lurches and drags, but comes over to him. Harry carefully maneuvers one of the still hands until they’re clutching the cup’s handle.

He doesn’t want to touch the body now that it’s completely envenomed, even though he doesn’t know if that would do the same thing as stabbing himself with his dagger. But some experiments he doesn’t need to conduct.

The cup goes quiet when Harry touches it again. Harry rubs it soothingly, and then the jerk happens and he’s pulled through space again. It seems the cup doesn’t mind fulfilling _this_ part of the purpose Barty intended it for.

_A Murmuring Drone_

There’s a lot of talking after Harry comes back with Barty’s body.

It seems that a lot of people recognize him right away as Bartemius Crouch, Jr., and there’s a lot of screaming and fainting about how he was supposed to have died in Azkaban _years_ ago, and how did he get here, and why did Harry kill him. Harry thinks he can answer those questions easily by showing the magical eye and the wooden leg, and talking about Barty’s decision to fight a duel.

For some reason, though, almost no one accepts this. The first part, Harry supposes he can understand after some listening.

“How could _no one_ have realized that Moody was acting out of character?” Professor McGonagall has her hands pressed to her head.

They’re in Dumbledore’s office, and the Headmaster is sitting behind the desk sucking on a lemon drop and not saying a word. He just keeps looking between Harry and the body—which no one has been allowed to take away yet—as though he thinks they’re an equation that will lead up to a different solution. Harry wants to shake his head at him. Dumbledore is probably years away from his Arithmancy classes, but he ought to _remember_ that you can’t change an equation unless you change its components.

“Albus!” Professor McGonagall swings around to stare at him. “Answer me! Didn’t _you_ notice that Alastor was acting differently?”

Dumbledore sighs. “I am afraid that I did not,” he admits, and at least he sounds pained about it, instead of like he’s trying to excuse himself. “Alastor has always been so paranoid and jumpy and prone to finding answers in shadows…”

“That you thought a convicted Death Eater was him?”

“Could someone go and find poor Mr. Moody?” Harry interrupts. “He’s lying somewhere without his eye and his leg, and he probably wants to have them back.”

“Certainly, certainly, one should go find Mr. Moody,” Cornelius Fudge mutters. He got contacted by Crouch and Bagman not long after Harry came back with the cup and Barty’s body, and he’s nervously eying Harry. He stands as far away from him as possible, and almost never speaks. Harry is satisfied that his curse to speak the truth still holds.

“I’ll go.” Professor McGonagall sounds frustrated with the whole thing. Harry willingly hands over Moody’s eye and leg, and she takes them and stalks out of the office, giving her robes a frustrated little flip on her way down the stairs. Harry thinks he’d like to learn how to do that.

“Now, Harry.” Dumbledore links his hands together on the desk. “I want you to tell me why you killed Mr. Crouch.”

“I didn’t. He’s right over there.”

Dumbledore breaths slowly in and out, probably some new sort of meditation exercises that Blackeye has him doing. Harry’s impressed by how well they’re working for him, since he succeeds in keeping his temper. “Listen to me, Harry. The young man at your feet was also named Crouch. He’s the one I’m referring to.”

“My _son_!” Crouch breaks in, his hands shaking. “Why did you murder _my son_?”

“Well, why was he alive when he was supposed to be dead?”

That gets more than one person turning to stare at Crouch. Snape, who is standing in the corner because apparently he thinks he needs to be present for every stupid discussion that happens at the school, hasn’t taken his gaze off either Harry or the body since they came in here, but now he looks straight at Crouch, his eyes glinting.

“Yes,” he says in a low voice, “I would be most interested to know how a _convicted Death Eater_ appeared alive at the school when he was supposedly buried years ago.”

Crouch draws himself up. “I will give you an answer on that when I get an answer from Mr. Potter on why he _murdered_ my _son_.”

Snape starts to snap something, but Harry answers, “He wanted to duel after I poisoned the body his lord was living in and destroyed it. So I said all right. And he was subject to the same blood feud as you if he was a Crouch. It’s not like I could have refused without losing my honor.”

“Your _honor_ , your precious _honor_.” Crouch is shaking, looking as if he might explode form the force of his emotions. “And you sit here as if you’re _proud of yourself_ for what you did.”

Harry blinks at him. “I’m not proud for having to kill a madman, but I’m not devastated. And I’m not the one who illegally imprisoned an innocent man, got a guilty one out of prison and lied to everyone about him being dead, refused a blood feud, and refused a duel after agreeing to it.”

“You act as though that makes murder acceptable!”

“Why was he out of prison, Crouch?” That’s Cornelius Fudge, for some reason. Harry raises his eyebrows. Well, sometimes even the worst people are capable of recognizing when someone is making a mistake, it seems.

Crouch looks down. “His mother,” he whispers. “She was dying, and she—she couldn’t stand the thought of her baby boy suffering in prison. All she wanted was for him to be free. It was the _only_ dying wish she had.”

“And that makes it worth freeing him, of course,” Snape sneers.

Then again, Harry thinks, that’s understandable. Snape probably didn’t have a dying mother and can’t think why someone would act on her behalf.

Harry shrugs a little and says, “That’s a sad story, but it means that it’s hypocritical of you to be angry about his death now. You broke the law, you lied and even told people that he wasn’t alive. I only cooperated in making your lie the truth.”

Crouch takes a step forwards, and Dumbledore creates a loud rapping sound with his wand. Everyone turns and looks at him.

“I need to speak with Mr. Potter in private,” he says loudly. “As it is, the Ministry will have some questions for Mr. Crouch about his son, and I’m sure that you want to take the body away and examine it.”

Harry has to admire the skill with which Dumbledore gets everyone to leave the office, except for Snape. Snape seems to think he has a right to stay. Harry disagrees, but he wants to hear what Dumbledore has to say, so he ignores the shuffling around Snape does and the angry, ugly look he gives Harry.

When they’re alone (except for a dishonorable coward), Dumbledore folds his hands on the desk again and stares at Harry. “I need to know everything you know about the body that Voldemort was there in.”

Snape flinches, but Harry can say this for him, he didn’t run madly off into a graveyard to serve a kelpie-thing. Harry nods a little. “Voldemort was there as a spirit possessing this tiny, ugly little body. I think Barty kidnapped me to try and get him a better one. They tried to bind me instead of just kill me, so they had to have _some_ use for me. But when I struck the body with my basilisk-venom dagger, it killed it. His spirit flew away, though.”

Dumbledore sighs and looks old, although a second later he jumps and his head rotates as if he thinks Blackeye is rising through the stones. “I wish you had managed to trap his spirit, my boy. It will be harder to capture him now that he is disembodied again.”

Harry shrugs a little. “I managed to drive him out of the body he was possessing twice before. I can do it again.”

“I wish you would not refer to poor Professor Quirrell that way, my boy.”

Harry ignores that, because it’s just rehashing the cause of the war, and Dumbledore knows all about that by now and shouldn’t need any further education. He stands up. “I’m going to go make sure the cup that Barty enchanted is okay,” he announces.

“I need to ask you a few more questions, Mr. Potter.”

“What about, though? I don’t know where Voldemort’s spirit went or anything.”

Dumbledore breathes again, and then says, “You think that committing murder isn’t something you need to talk about?”

“It was in the bounds of a legally recognized duel, and he’d kidnapped me and was trying to kill me. Why would you think that it was murder?”

“Legally recognized by _whom_?” Snape demands. “Not the Ministry.”

“My people.” Harry stares blankly at Snape, too. There are some people who can’t take a hint and can’t take a lesson. “Since he’s the son of a man I was having a blood feud with, and he kidnapped me.”

“You cannot go by goblin law concerning humans.”

Harry shrugs. “Crouch proves that I can’t go by human law and expect fair treatment for the people who matter to me, either.” He turns and walks out of the office.

He makes it all the way down the moving staircase and most of the way back to Ravenclaw Tower before he sees Luna moving towards him. Harry stops and waits for her, and she touches his arm and then looks into his face.

“A Nargle didn’t get you,” she says, and sighs. “I was coming to warn you about the Nargle, but I got delayed.”

“It’s all right.” Harry pats Luna’s shoulder. “I decided to go with the Nargle because the cup was hurt, and I wanted to do what I could to soothe its pain. And I defeated the kelpie when I got there.”

Luna’s eyes brighten. “That’s wonderful. Perhaps one day you will pay the kelpie back for the people he’s drowned.”

Harry smiles as they walk back to the Tower to comfort the cup together. No matter what he’s talking about, Luna always gets it immediately. He’s so glad that she’s his friend.

_The Immeasurable Hymn of Ocean_

“Let us honor today Harry James Potter, _amaraczh_ and goblin warrior and journeyman smith, for his prowess in battle!”

Harry bows as the chorus of cries rise from the throats of the goblins around him. They’re all gathered in the main cavern underneath Gringotts where his clan comes together in times of trouble and celebration. It has a smooth, segmented black floor, and smooth galleries grown from the stone on which many of the goblins sit.

Harry is the only one in the center of the floor, except for Toothsplitter, his master in his craft, and Ripclaw, the goblin who found him all those years ago. They’re the appropriate ones to honor him. Harry turns to Ripclaw, his heart hammering with excitement and his breath coming short.

Ripclaw steps towards him and bows. Harry sighs, and the sigh is echoed from the galleries around him. It’s a big deal for a goblin as old as Ripclaw to bow to _anyone_ , but he also gave Harry his first knife, and it’s right that he be here after Harry’s first duel.

“Harry,” Ripclaw says, his eyes burning with pride like candles in the seams of the Deep Ones. “I give you this day three gifts.”

Harry blinks. He only expected two. “Ripclaw…”

“It is your right,” Ripclaw says. “And it is mine, as Honorer, to say how much I will deliver. Or do you dispute my right?”

Harry dips his chin. “Of course not, Ripclaw.”

Ripclaw nods. “Then this is the way of it.” He reaches into his belt and draws out a finely-made knife, shaped like Harry’s daggers, but with a sharper point and greater heft. “I will train you in the art of knife-song. This is the first blade that you will wield in the pursuit of that art.”

Harry tips his head to the side, baring his throat for a strike if Ripclaw wants it, overwhelmed. It’s the most profound gesture he can make, greater than a bow, and still he doesn’t think it’s great enough to answer the gift. Knife-song is the use of music to make sure that the knife flies straight to its target. Harry can become deadly from a distance, and perhaps even learn to cast wand-spells through the knife as it flies.

“My thanks,” he says at last, with a dry throat.

Ripclaw nods, his eyes gleaming a little, and hands Harry the knife. “Now for the customary _two_ gifts,” he says, and there is laughter and cheering from the galleries, which before this were silent in the most profound recognition they, in turn, could give.

Ripclaw lays his hands on either side of Harry’s face, gazing deeply into his eyes. “The left or the right, young _amaraczh_?” he asks. “The face or the hand?”

“The right,” Harry says, and breathes out his choice—the one he’s made, presumptuously, years before, even though he knew this day might never come. “The face.”

Ripclaw nods quietly, the truth unspoken between them that few humans would choose to be marked there. But Harry wants everyone who looks at him to _know_ who he is, and that he’s proud of his heritage. His people. The ones he _chose._

Ripclaw studies Harry’s face for a second, doubtless memorizing the curves and the cheekbones to decide on the best placement. Then he nods again and moves his claws down, blindingly fast, in the motion for which he was named. He’s sharpened them so much that Harry doesn’t even feel the skin part, only the blood pouring.

Toothsplitter steps forwards, so stiff with pride that she moves like a steel machine, and hands him the customary Searing Cloth. It looks like a simple white handkerchief with a silver zigzag down the middle of it, but when Harry lifts it and presses it against the wound, there’s a flash and a dizzying pull of magic through his face.

When he hands it back to Toothsplitter, Ripclaw is holding out the mirror for him. Harry struggles against his own pride as he views the scar cutting his cheek that’s the mark of a warrior, a perfect zigzag that will never heal. It sizzles from just beneath his right eye to the curve of his cheek, then turns and moves under his ear, then arrows back to stop just short of his mouth.

There are no words to describe the blood-beat in his ears, a match for the thunder of the drums that are being played for him.

“And the third,” Ripclaw says softly, and moves forwards. A bubble of silence comes with him, called into being by this place, this moment, this acceptance of Harry as a warrior and Harry’s acceptance of the gifts.

Harry smiles at him, and waits. Ripclaw bends his head towards him and says tenderly, “Your warrior name is Doomgiver.”

Harry bows his head. In Gobbledegook, the twist of the words means that Harry gives doom and justice, both, ending evil.

It’s an _immense_ honor, especially because he didn’t actually kill Voldemort, the greater threat, in the graveyard. But Ripclaw honors his intentions, and his youth, and the doom-giving potential of the basilisk venom, and the future, all in one swoop.

Harry won’t use the name often. Warriors have their common name and then their warrior name, which is only spoken in the heat of battle and in the inner caverns of the clan. Harry can share it with his enemies as they lie dying, if he wants, as a final gift, but that’s his choice.

But to know that he has it, that he is also a goblin in name now…

“Does it suit, Harry?” Ripclaw asks, and Harry realizes abruptly that he hasn’t given the formal acceptance.

He reaches out, lays his hand against the faded warrior scar on Ripclaw’s cheek, and says, “It is my privilege and my weight to bear until the end of my days, until they end by time or blade.”

Ripclaw grins. The acceptance Harry chose is the more formal one. He could have just indicated that he was happy with the name while retaining the right to change it later if he wanted, but he wants to do it this way. He wants to carry the warrior name, always.

The bubble of silence drops as Ripclaw steps away from him, and Harry bows to the assembled goblins as Ripclaw proclaims, “This is Harry James Potter, warrior of the Arzhenakkhanian Clan, bearer of the warrior name Doomgiver, holder of the basilisk fang, and journeyman to the Master Smith Toothsplitter!”

The deafening cries of the drums and the clan echo back to him, and Harry kneels and holds up his daggers so everyone can see them, the symbols of his right to bear the name, and turns slowly in a circle, so that everyone can see the scar, too.

He knows that he’s the first human in centuries to be so honored, and his pride fills him like the sun.

*

“I think you are ready to see a tributary of the Argent Ocean.”

Harry catches his breath as he watches Toothsplitter open a door in the air that wasn’t there a moment before. It leads _past_ the Argent Ocean, blazing and shimmering, and Harry doesn’t hesitate to follow her through it. He finds himself standing on a grey, pebbled shore, sloping down to a single stream that flows and clangs heavily on its way through rock to the Argent Ocean.

It’s also gleaming gold and copper, instead of the mixed molten silver and water of the Ocean.

Harry turns to Toothsplitter with questions in his eyes. She motions for him to sit down, and takes a seat beside him on the shore, looping her arms at ease around her legs.

“This is a tributary that we have our children practice on,” she says. “It turns silver when it merges with the Argent Ocean, but by the time it gets there, it only has the gold and copper left as stabilizing agents that help keep the souls of our once-enemies at peace in the argent. This stream contains a psychic impression of each human who has died trying to break into Gringotts, cheat us, or betray us.”

Harry nods. Not their souls, then, but a sense of what the human was like. “And all of them are forged before the stream gets to the ocean?”

“Yes. We channel it back and forth until all of the impressions are forged, and the gold and copper can proceed on their way, cleansed.” Toothsplitter turns to face him. “I want you to show me what you have learned, Harry. That you have not let your skills lapse while you were living in the halls of Hogwarts.”

Harry takes a long, slow breath, and reaches down to let his hands rest along the bank of the stream, staring into the flowing gold and copper. This is the first step in the more advanced lessons. Let his mind sink, flow deep, dip down, and meet the psychic impression of the human.

 _There._ A sniveling soul-picture, a devastating sense of darkness and cowardice that makes Harry want to go take a shower. A man who broke into Gringotts and got as far as one of the deep vaults before being roasted to death by a dragon. He died in pain and fear.

Harry feels the impression slipping away from him because of his disgust, and shakes his head sharply. No, he is not going to let this happen. He _will_ forge the impression, and make beauty out of ugliness. Unlike the goblins’ once-enemies whose powers are imprisoned in the Argent Ocean, there is no living human somewhere to return this impression to.

But just because it’s practice doesn’t mean it’s not important.

Harry winds his mind around the other man’s psychic impression and draws it forth, draws it around and on, wrapping it in his thoughts, harmonizing with its song, imagining the copper and gold from the stream coming with and holding it—

And something _burning_ coalesces in his hands, prevented from burning _him_ by the songs wrapped around it.

Harry opens his eyes and glimpses the dripping blade of molten copper that he holds, with a golden hilt. He turns quickly and plunges it into the barrel of water that Toothsplitter carried with them, and the hiss and the steam that result make him smile in pride.

He _did_ it. He forged the psychic impression of a human into something beautiful and shining, even though it would be a highly imperfect blade if he had to use it to defend himself or something else.

When the steam finally fades and he can draw the sword forth, Harry smiles again. It’s a twisted, beaten thing, cracked by the heat. But when he touches it, the copper flashes forth, and the gold is there, hiding and darting in cracks in the hilt.

And there is a new song in his mind. A song that contains notes of sympathy for the dead man’s gambling problem, and remembers his love for his mother, and says that he once stood in awe of the stars.

Harry will remember him. The sword, and the song, will remember him. He is no longer just an enemy of the goblins.

This is the art of a goblin smith.


	4. Chapter 4

_Catastrophic Fountains_

“The Ministry wants to see me? Not the Minister?” Harry asks.

Amelia Bones is sitting upright and straight in front of him in the visitor’s chamber in the bank, but her eyes are bright with distress. (Harry prefers the astonishment she first showed when she saw his gift-scar, although she didn’t say a word).. She’s one of the few humans Harry trusts completely, since she swore oaths to be fair and honest with his people, and so what concerns her concerns him. He would kill to ease the source of her distress, but he doesn’t think it will be that simple, unfortunately.

Madam Bones nods. “Yes. The Minister still can’t speak anything that he doesn’t believe is the truth.” A smile darts across her mouth, and something deep in her eyes relaxes. “But he is getting minions to do it for him. They want to try you for the murder of Barty Crouch, Jr.”

“What charges are being filed against Crouch _Senior_ for keeping his son alive all these years and lying to your government about it?” Toothsplitter sits frowning next to Harry, and Harry is glad she’s there, even though he’s an adult now and could be expected to handle this on his own. Toothsplitter has made herself informed about more aspects of human society than goblins usually study, because she feels responsible for him and his status as a citizen of two worlds. “That is also a crime.”

“Crouch convinced the Ministry to drop that,” Madam Bones says, her face going tight again. “He’s persuaded the Wizengamot that he only did what he did because he wanted to honor the wishes of his dying wife, and that he’s been traumatized by the death of his son.”

She’s good enough to avoid calling it murder, Harry notes. That’s something, at least. He shakes his head. “I was following blood feud practice among my own people, Madam Bones.”

“I do believe that, Mr. Potter. But unfortunately, the Ministry doesn’t, and they insist you come in and speak to the Wizengamot. It might or might not proceed to a trial at that point, depending on if they’re satisfied with your answers.”

Harry can smell the truth rising off her as easily as if he was a werewolf. They’ll proceed to the trial, because they’re already determined not to be satisfied with his answers.

Harry sighs. “Would it help if I provided a memory of the battle?”

“It would help. But I don’t know that it would change the outcome.”

Harry nods. “Then I’ll come and do it. Crouch deserves to know how his son died, even though it won’t really change anything. And I’ll give the answers, and if they want to go to war with us, well.” He shrugs a little. “They’re going to be running out of stored money soon.”

He exchanges vicious smiles with Toothsplitter. The Ministry once mined its own stocks of ore to create Galleons and the other coins that wizards use, so they would always have a source of money independent of the goblins. Harry’s people took that away when they started their war, and they do expect the Ministry to sue for peace soon.

It’s remarkable they haven’t so far, really, but Harry knows that you can get pretty far without underestimating human stupidity.

*

“You have to leave your weapons here.”

“No.”

The young and hapless man at the front of the Ministry stares at Madam Bones, and then down at Harry. “You _have_ to,” he says. “There’s no precedent for letting you go armed into the Wizengamot courtroom.”

“Is there a precedent for a goblin coming here at all?” Harry asks, turning to Madam Bones for help.

Madam Bones appears to consider it, and one would have to know her better than Harry does to tell how close she’s hovering to the edge of laughter. “I don’t believe so,” she says at last. “Other than the few times that they were brought to testify in Wizengamot trials as expert witnesses.”

“Well, then. And did you take their weapons from them?”

“I don’t believe so,” Madam Bones repeats. “They were never searched.”

“He’s not a goblin, he’s a _human_ ,” the wizard says.

“I’m a goblin,” Harry repeats patiently, “but I can give you my human weapons.” He takes out his wand and slides it across the desk to the man.

The man clutches it, but scowls at Harry. “You have to leave the daggers, too.”

Harry shakes his head. “They’re goblin weapons, and the Ministry doesn’t have historic or legal precedent to take goblin weapons, so I won’t.”

The man stares back and forth between Harry and Madam Bones. “But it could cost me my _job_ if I let him pass and then it turns out that he attacks someone,” he whines, and Harry can’t tell which of them he’s addressing.

“I will give my surety,” says Madam Bones. “I’ll tell the others that you tried to stop Mr. Potter and take his weapons if he attacks someone and that person asks me about why his daggers weren’t stripped from him.”

Her voice is firm, showing how unlikely she thinks it will be that this even comes up. The young man sighs and writes something down on a sheet of paper that he puts under the desk with Harry’s wand. “All right, Madam Bones. But I think it’s a bad idea, giving _beasts_ the right to push us around like that.”

Harry opens his mouth to demand who he’s calling a beast, but Madam Bones take his arm and firmly escorts him further into the Ministry. Harry shakes his head when they’re away from the desk and aiming towards one of the lifts that stands in a fairly dark corner. “I’m glad that I know humans like you, Madam Bones, and I don’t need to form all my impressions from _that_ one.”

“Quite.” Madam Bones’s lips are pale as she stabs her finger on the lift button. “My apologies, Mr. Potter. I—am not proud of the backwardness of many of my people.”

Harry nods, mollified a little. At least Madam Bones acknowledges why that man’s words were an insult, and she’s willing to do what she can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. He doesn’t think he’ll even have to duel the man to get his wand back.

The lift zips them down to a corridor that’s mostly black with a few white stones among them. Harry wrinkles his nose. He can hear the stones grumbling about the lack of upkeep charms cast on them, and the fact that people throw food wrappers and discarded memos and old quills away in the corners.

It’s probably only the house-elves that keep the stones from just sagging or breaking and refusing to do their jobs. Harry vows to find some Ministry house-elves and thank them, on the stones’ behalf.

The door of the courtroom is open, and there’s a cruel-looking wizard in plum-colored robes leaning out of it, tapping his foot on the floor. “Where have you been?” he snaps. “The trial was supposed to start ten minutes ago.”

Madam Bones draws herself up and holds out a piece of paper like a dagger of her own. “This says ten, not nine-fifty.”

The man snorts. “And it was updated. Honestly, don’t you ever pay attention to your owls?” He stares at Harry. “And what is _this_?”

“Someone who can kill you,” Harry says. “Would you like to try?”

The man staggers back from him, his face paling like old cheese, and Madam Bones leads Harry into the courtroom. “I appreciate the free entertainment,” she says out of the corner of her mouth, “but please don’t threaten to kill others on a regular basis.”

“You want me to _lie_?”

Madam Bones must know enough about goblins to realize what a deadly insult that is, because she shakes her head. “No. Only be more diplomatic in the way that you phrase things.”

“Diplomatic.” Harry ponders that. He thinks he can manage it. And he wonders why no one ever just asked him to do this before, instead of asking him to give up his weapons and his heritage and act human.

Then again, he already knows that Madam Bones is a rarity among humans in not feeling their kind of species superiority.

He follows her into the courtroom, and she nods at a stone chair that sits in front of everybody. Harry walks towards it, studying the chains on the arms. They shake back and forth with eagerness to clasp his wrists.

Harry says, “Please don’t.”

The chains ignore him, the first objects that have for a long time. They’ve probably been corrupted by a long service to cruel wizards, poor things. They crouch and shoot out to grab Harry when he sits down.

Harry blocks them with a swift chop of his daggers, and sings the note that he uses when he messes up in some of his smithing work and has to reforge the blade. The steel chains snap in two.

Harry sits down and meets the wizards’ stares. The cruel man who met them at the door has retreated into the audience, but there are plenty of other people in purple robes who want to make trouble for him.

“What do you mean, Mr. Potter, by breaking Ministry property?”

That voice is a little familiar, and Harry glances up and sees Dolores Umbridge sitting in the audience. _Well._ His people humiliated her enough during the opening stages of the war that she resigned the public position she had at the time, as the Minister’s Senior Undersecretary, and Harry thought she was completely retired. But here she is, with an odd bronze necklace around her throat that ends in a blazing pewter star.

“They tried to grab me,” Harry says. “I warned them, but they did it anyway.”

Umbridge sneers at him. “You are as violent and brutal as any of your people.”

Harry smiles. “I think you misunderstand the nature of my people, but thank you for accepting me as a goblin.”

“Of course I can.” Umbridge smirks back and forth along the lines of the Wizengamot, although only a few people smirk back at her. Harry gets the impression that most of them don’t like her. “As the Ministry’s Goblin Expert, I am in charge of handling this trial.”

“Oh, good!” Harry thinks that he may have misjudged Umbridge. “Then you can tell them that it was self-defense and not murder, and there doesn’t need to be a trial at all.”

“It is murder,” Umbridge purrs. “Because I know that goblin warriors don’t fight duels except for those with equals, and you did it anyway.”

“Or with those who initiate duels by harming us or starting a blood feud,” Harry corrects her. “Barty fit both those categories. Let me just put my memories in a Pensieve. Do you have one?” He looks around the chamber, which is bigger than he thought at first, but also shabbier. The stone here doesn’t look well-cared-for, either.

“Of course. And then we shall see the _truth._ ”

The way Umbridge lays emphasis on the last word makes Harry think that he might not have misjudged her, after all. But he only nods and then looks towards the large, black Pensieve that Madam Bones is bringing up.

Harry tilts his head when he hears the whispery voice from the Pensieve. It’s telling itself to lie, and reciting the runes carved into the sides that distort any memory placed within it.

Well, _that_ won’t do. As Madam Bones places the Pensieve in front of him on a plinth that has risen from the floor, Harry touches the Pensieve and says, “Don’t distort my memories, please.”

The whispery voice stops, and the Pensieve’s attention shifts to him. A shiver of excitement dances through the stone, making the sides ripple and contract, although besides him, Harry thinks only Madam Bones is close enough to notice. She gives him a sidelong glance as she instructs him in how to draw forth a memory.

Of course, Harry left his wand with the young man at the front desk, so some of her instructions don’t make sense. But he just adapts, and touches his steel dagger to his temple and calls forth a long, dripping silvery strand.

The Pensieve examines it with attention as Harry drops the memory into it. And then the runes dance up and down the sides, and the Pensieve makes the decision not to corrupt his memory. It’s interesting enough on its own.

When the Pensieve is settled, Madam Bones steps up to it and brushes her fingers over the runes. There’s another twisting hiss of magic, and the image jumps to life, rising out of the basin to shine with silvery light on the air.

Harry watches with attention. Usually, his people share important memories with song and written stone, so they don’t have anything exactly like this. But it ought to be possible to forge a blade that would share it, or a page in a huge book like the one that he saw Diamond the lore-singer chiseling.

The Wizengamot watches the first part of the memory in silence, as Harry arrives on the graveyard and “Moody” turns into Barty Crouch, Jr. Then he brings out the not-a-kelpie, and Umbridge raps on the desk in front of her.

Madam Bones touches the runes again, and stops the image. Umbridge rises slowly, majestically, to her feet.

“There is _no_ evidence that the Dark wizard known as You-Know-Who has returned,” she states. “You will strike that from the report, secretary.”

Harry catches a glimpse of red hair, and sees someone who looks like a Weasley brother taking the notes. Huh. He’ll have to catch Fred and George when he can and ask why their brother has this kind of Ministry job.

“Who was that?” Umbridge asks, turning to Harry. “Since it is not You-Know-Who.”’

Harry is a little puzzled, but has to accept that he might have given the spirit too much credit by thinking it was Voldemort. “A spirit possessing a grown body,” he replies. “One that Barty claimed was his lord.”

“But _who_ was it?”

“If It’s not Voldemort, I don’t know,” Harry says.

Umbridge gives what sounds like a snarl, and sits down. Madam Bones starts the memory playing again, and they watch the spirit flee and Barty accepts Harry’s invitation to duel, Umbridge pops up again.

“This is not the real memory!” she says.

“How do you know?” Harry asks. “You weren’t there.”

Umbridge gives him what looks like a real glare of hatred. Harry is a little honored. So far, he thinks only Voldemort has really hated him, and maybe Barty, and one of them has fled and one died in the duel. He wonders if Umbridge would like to duel him. She seems to know a lot about goblins, so maybe.

In fact, she’s short and squat enough that Harry thinks she might have a goblin grandparent. Maybe she’s from a clan that has a feud with his. That would make sense, as would her hiring by the Ministry if they know about her goblin knowledge but not her goblin blood.

“I know because the runes on the Pensieve would have glowed if this was a real memory,” Umbridge says, with a loud sniff. She marches over and runs her wand over the runes on the side of the Pensieve. “But as you can see, the runes—”

The runes light up under her wand, and Umbridge smiles in satisfaction. But then the runes go out again, and the Pensieve begins to emit a soft glow from under the edges of the basin.

Harry watches. He doesn’t know how it’s doing _that._ He doesn’t know how he would mimic the effect in a blade, either.

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

But Umbridge takes the question as directed at her, and points her wand at him. Harry narrows his eyes. He might have to draw his daggers.

“ _You_ are doing this!” she shrieks. “Corrupting your memory, twisting it to show something that’s not true! Show me your wand!”

Madam Bones clears her throat. “Actually, Christoper Denken at the front desk took his wand,” she says. “Mr. Potter can’t be doing anything to affect the memory or the runes on the Pensieve, unless you think that he is capable of wandless magic.”

“He’s a little half-breed _child_ , how can he?”

Madam Bones gives Umbridge a cold look. “Then he can’t be affecting the Pensieve.”

Umbridge stares back and forth between Harry and the runes and the memory-image hovering in the air. “But—but that’s impossible. It’s _impossible_ that the dead man should have agreed to a duel!”

“Why?” Harry asks. “You weren’t there.”

“Shut up, you little half-breed!”

Harry tilts his head. “Are you trying to insult me? Do you want a duel with me, too?”

“I am beginning to wonder if this is Mr. Potter at all,” says a heavyset woman with dark, hooded eyes. “It’s true that there haven’t been as many photographs in the paper of him as I would have expected of a celebrity, but the ones I saw did not have that scar. Could he be an impostor capable of doing wandless magic?”

“ _Finite Incantatem_!” Umbridge shouts, waving her wand at Harry.

Harry shakes his head a little as the magic washes over him. Of course, it doesn’t do anything, because Harry doesn’t carry any active wizard magic on his person at the moment. Most of the time, the only objects he has that do are his trunk and wand.

“This _can’t_ be true.” Umbridge’s face is ashen now.

Madam Bones sighs tiredly. “Dolores, so far you haven’t given us any reason that it can’t be, other than the fact that you want to believe Mr. Potter murdered Barty Crouch, Jr. As you can see from the memory, Crouch kidnapped Mr. Potter and intended to use him for something, surely some vile ritual that would help this spirit he called lord. Mr. Potter was justified in fighting back in self-defense.”

“No, he isn’t,” says the dark-eyed woman from before. “No goblin can strike a human and not expect to pay the penalty.”

“Does that include humans who were convicted of being Death Eaters years before and supposedly died in prison?” Harry asks. “Because I don’t think that I’ve ever heard someone interpret the law that way before.”

The dark-eyed woman shakes her head rapidly. “We are not here to try either of the Crouches. We are here to try _you_ , Mr. Potter.”

“But then you have a problem,” Harry says evenly. “Because you can’t try underage wizards with a full court of the Wizengamot like this. I looked up _that_ law the other day. So you must be trying me as an adult goblin instead. And adult goblins are judged by the laws of their people. By the laws of my people, I dueled Crouch, and did nothing wrong. I earned the status of adult warrior for it.” He touches his scar. “This marks me as having earned that status.”

“We are trying you as a half-breed!” Umbridge snarls.

“Which one of my parents was the goblin, then?”

“What?”

“The laws differ,” Harry explains patiently. It’s disappointing, but he’s beginning to think that she isn’t a goblin expert after all. “If my mother was the goblin, it’s different than if my father was.”

Umbridge’s eyes dart around. She looks trapped. Then she straightens her shoulders. “Your mother. She was the _Mudblood,_ after all, wasn’t she?”

Harry smiles. “Half-goblins with goblin mothers are tried as goblins. Which means, by their people.” He stands up and nods to the members of the Wizengamot. “Thank you. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but it’s been interesting.”

“No!” Umbridge roars, stepping in front of him. “I meant to say your father!”

“I worked in the Aurors with James Potter,” says an older man with a long white beard who reminds Harry a little of Dumbledore. He sounds like he keeps his nose cleaner, though. “He was a thoroughgoing pureblood human, madam. I suggest you watch your tongue.”

“Exactly,” says the dark-eyed woman, and now she’s looking in distaste at Umbridge. “What is the world coming to, when purebloods can be accused of having creature blood?”

Harry raises his eyebrows. He didn’t know the prejudice was _that_ bad. It’s no wonder that Karkaroff went out of his way to hide his Mermish heritage. If Harry ever talks to him again, he’ll apologize for telling so many people about it.

“Harry Potter _is a half-breed_!” Umbridge screams.

“You can’t even decide which of my parents was the goblin,” Harry says. “I don’t think you have enough evidence to shout about it.”

Umbridge still has her wand drawn. She turns and lunges at him.

Harry is mostly offended that she didn’t ask for a duel in the proper form. And he doesn’t draw his daggers. It would be a waste on her. Instead, he asks the necklace hanging around her neck to take care of her for him.

The necklace whips around and around Umbridge’s throat, binding and constricting her, and Umbridge bends over, coughing. The necklace lets go, and Umbridge stands up, pointing at him with a finger instead of her wand, which Harry considers the only smart thing she’s done since he entered the courtroom. “See? He _is_ capable of wandless magic.”

“No, he isn’t,” the black-eyed woman snaps. “Now if he’s a half-breed.”

“He’s a half-breed!”

“Then he’s not capable of wandless magic.’

The two women stare at each other. Harry shakes his head a little. He thinks both of them are stupid, but if their stupidity works against them charging him with murder, then that’s fine with him.

Umbridge looks away, her hand locked on the pewter star at the end of the bronze chain. “Then I give up and will not be the Ministry’s Goblin Expert any longer,” she snaps, and throws the necklace on the floor and stalks out of the courtroom.

Harry bends down and picks up the poor necklace, stroking the bronze links. He’ll forge it into a different form for the bravery it showed. It snuggles into his hands with a little sigh.

“Well, without our expert, and without Mr. Crouch here to press the charges himself, and with the memory of Barty Crouch, Jr., clearly agreeing to the duel,” says Madam Bones dryly, “may I suggest that the Wizengamot doesn’t have enough evidence to try Mr. Potter one way or the other?”

The Wizengamot must agree, although they use more syllables to say it, because soon after that, Harry and Madam Bones are in the corridor again. Madam Bones sighs and straightens her robes around her. “I’m sorry you had to sit through that, Mr. Potter.”

Harry shrugs. “It was interesting. I meant that. To see how people with horizons this limited think about goblins.”

Madam Bones gives him a sad smile. “Maybe you never have to learn more about their prejudices than this, Mr. Potter.”

_Coiling and Creeping Onward_

Of course, Madam Bones is wrong, good wish or not. Harry has to learn about a lot of prejudices, as he finds when he meets up with Luna in Diagon Alley to do their shopping for the upcoming school year.

Luna smiles at him and hugs him, then leans in to study the scar. “This is very handsome. Did you have it done to please a unicorn?”

Harry laughs quietly. “No. It’s because I’m a full-fledged goblin warrior, now, an adult in the eyes of my people, and everyone who’s one of those gets a mark like this.”

Luna nods, accepting that, and they leave the Leaky Cauldron for Diagon Alley. People turn around and stare at Harry in seconds. Someone points. Someone screams, which makes Harry spin around with his hands on his daggers, expecting _at least_ the spirit that might be Voldemort swooping down on the alley, before he realizes that the adults are staring at him and their children are cowering.

Harry shakes his head. Yes, as a goblin warrior, he’s dangerous, but not to people who haven’t offered him any kind of insult. He sheathes his daggers fully and walks on with Luna, ignoring the chattering and the questions.

Soon enough, someone decides they won’t be satisfied with that, and comes up to Harry as he and Luna are about to enter Flourish and Blotts. “Potter, what did you do to your _face_? Did you spill acid on it?”

Harry glances at the blond boy and dredges his mind for his name. Slytherin, right, the one who supposedly gets praise from Snape all the time, according to Ginny. Draco Malfoy. “No, magic.”

“Why did you—”

Malfoy reaches out to touch Harry’s scar, which means Harry grabs his wrist, shaking his head. Foes and people of his clan are the only ones who can actually _touch_ a warrior’s scar. It’s a grave insult to have it happen otherwise, and Harry doesn’t want to kill someone who’s just a kid. “I did it because I’m an adult now.”

Malfoy drops his hand and pretends that Harry didn’t hurt his wrist, which feels like it’s never wielded a blade. “No, not until you’re seventeen.”

“An adult goblin,” Harry says patiently.

Malfoy sneers at him and takes another sidelong glance at his wrist, which he probably thinks was disfigured by the touch of Harry’s hand. “Well, you’re ugly enough to be one.”

Harry studies him for a second, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry to say that you’re only ugly enough to be a pureblood wizard, nothing else.”

Malfoy’s cheeks flood with color. “Freak,” he spits.

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Do you spend a lot of time around Muggles?”

“No! _Freak_.”

“I just asked because I heard my Muggle aunt and uncle use that word a lot. I thought maybe you knew them.”

Malfoy straightens his robes and matches away from them. Luna giggles lightly. “Even if he knew them, he would never admit it.”

“That’s true,” Harry agrees. He can’t think that most people would _admit_ to knowing the Dursleys. “Come on, let’s get our books.”

*

“Very nice scar, Supreme Warrior of All the World!”

“I like the way it zigs and zags, Forge. Very dashing, wot?”

“Yes, it _dashes_ down his face!”

Harry smiles as he watches the Weasley twins fall over themselves laughing. They tracked him down on the train, the way they did last year, and now he just has to wait for them to work past the jokes and get to the point.

“Came to say thank you for the way you neutralized Crouch,” George finally says, and straightens up to give Harry a little bow. “He’s retired from the Ministry now. Couldn’t take the heat when it was—”

“Revealed that his darling Death Eater baby boy was still alive,” Fred takes up smoothly. “And because of that, Ludo Bagman lost his most powerful protector in the Ministry, and had to—”

“Settle up his gambling debts if he didn’t want to go to prison.” George swings his robe pocket back and forth, making it clink. “So we have you to thank for the funds to start our own business!”

“Oh?” Harry tilts his head. “Then perhaps you’d like goblin investment in it? I have a few people in my clan who would be interested.”

The twins exchange startled glances, and then Fred says cautiously, “You know that we want to open a joke shop?”

“Yes, I know. What does that change?”

“Well, we thought goblins wouldn’t be interested in investing in something so—unserious.”

Harry laughs. “We enjoy businesses that make money and can produce defensive products, and I know you can do that. Ginny told me about a few of the ones you were showing around in Gryffindor last year. We might not buy them ourselves, because goblin and human senses of humor aren’t always the same, but we could get some income from you, and that’s a good thing.”

Fred and George talk to each other with their eyes, and Harry waits patiently. Sometimes he looks at them and wonders what it would be like to have a twin, but other times, he’s glad that he doesn’t. He likes finishing his own sentences.

Finally, Fred nods and sticks out his hand. “I know that you’ll have to consult with your clan to get backing,” he says. “But thank you for the initial proposal. And we’re prepared to strike a bargain for a ten percent interest.”

Harry snorts and doesn’t shake Fred’s hand. “I do indeed have to consult with my clan, and agreeing to a number so low without their input is just stupid.”

“Fifteen?” George can make huge eyes when he wants to.

“Probably more like thirty.”

Fred and George groan and clasp each other in dramatic disbelief, but Harry rolls his eyes. “Remember that although goblins and humans have different senses of humor, we share the same maths.”

Fred sighs and untangles himself from George to sweep Harry a bow of his own. “We won’t doubt that, Your Dangerous Daggership, sir.”

“We’ll remember that you have a basilisk-fang blade,” George adds, “just in case we ever _are_ tempted to forget.”

Harry smiles. “Good. Let that keep your memories sharp.”

The twins act as if he’s made the best pun ever. Harry lets them think that. He’s sure they’ll come to a good business agreement with his clan. The twins aren’t the kind of people who think that someone is _less_ dangerous because of the weapons he carries and the scar on his cheek.

_Song of Unplumbed Wrath_

“Mr. Potter. What is that _thing_ on your cheek?”

“A scar.”

Harry meets Snape’s eyes and holds them. He’s given up hope that Snape will do the honorable thing and meet him in a duel, but he still hopes that eventually, he might provoke Snape into doing it out of spite.

Certainly Snape is sneering at his scar out of spite. “Your mother would weep if she could see you,” he hisses.

“Out of pride? Well, yes, I’d hope so.”

Snape’s hands begin to shake, and Harry perks up and watches Snape closely. He keeps his own hands away from his daggers, though. He can’t be caught in a situation where someone could say that he started the duel first. He knows that most of the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students he has these classes with will be too terrified to speak up against Snape in Harry’s favor, if it comes down to the words of witnesses.

“She did not raise you to be a _goblin._ ”

“Well, no,” Harry says, puzzled at that tactic that Snape appears to be using. “She didn’t raise me at all. She’s dead.”

Snape makes a choked, pained sound, and reaches behind him for something that might be a cauldron or his wand. Harry tenses in anticipation, but Snape only brings up a bright vial of clear liquid and swallows most of it.

 _A Calming Draught,_ Harry realizes with disappointment as Snape turns away from them and barks to the rest of the class, “Well, what are _you_ staring at? Get back to work!”

Harry sighs and starts working on his potion with the help of Terry Boot again, while thinking, _Someday, he’ll snap and lose control, and then me and my daggers will be waiting._

*

“Potter! Stay after!”

Terry pauses and looks anxiously in his direction, along with Michael Corner. Both of them seem to be remembering that someone who _looked_ like Moody kidnapped Harry just a few months ago. But Harry waves at them to go ahead.

Professor Moody—the _real_ Moody, this time, as the Defense professor—really does act different from Barty. Harry assumes that Barty had luck and the fact that no one was that close to Moody except for Dumbledore to thank for not being caught before he was. Moody is snappish, but he also explains things more clearly, and he despises the Dark Arts, and he insists that everyone do the best they can, while Barty-as-Moody would make cruel remarks and dismiss students who couldn’t perform to his satisfaction to sit in the back of the classroom.

Now, Moody stares at Harry with his one physical eye narrowed and the magical eye pointing at Harry from an odd angle halfway to the ceiling, and says, “I understand I have you to thank for my freedom.”

“Oh, no,” Harry says. “I didn’t get you out of that trunk, after all. I just killed the man who was masquerading as you and brought your eye and leg back.”

“What do you call that, if not freedom?”

“Restoration?” Harry offers, after thinking about it for a moment. “Your freedom involved more trunk-opening.”

Moody vomits an abrupt laugh, and shoots out his hand to trace the scar on Harry’s cheek. Harry grabs his hand, but Moody just shakes his head. “Don’t want to touch it, lad. I know the look of a true goblin warrior scar.” He grins. “I can think of a number of people here who would shit themselves on a regular basis if they knew a fully-trained goblin warrior was walking among them.”

“Please don’t tell them. Cleaning up that much shit would be annoying for the house-elves.”

“True enough!” Moody pulls his hand back. “Has the Headmaster talked to you about the Order of the Phoenix yet?”

“The group he led against Voldemort in the first war? No. He’s talked to me about Voldemort’s Horcruxes, but he’s said that I can’t hunt for them because he wants to be the general in the war.”

“Horcruxes? He made Horcruxes?”

Moody sounds on the verge of choking with outrage. Harry eyes him in concern. “Yes. I don’t know how many, but more than one. I already got rid of the one that was in me with the help of my people, and the one that was a diary possessing someone here at Hogwarts with the aid of my basilisk-fang dagger. But I don’t know where to begin the hunt for the others.”

“I’ll speak with Albus,” Moody promises. “It’s ridiculous that you know all about this and yet he won’t let you help with the hunt.”

Harry beams at Moody. He thinks there’s another difference between the real man and Barty. He’s awfully nice and straightforward. “Thanks, Professor Moody. Now, please let me leave? I need to make it to Charms, and that’s on the other side of the castle.”

“Thanks for indulging an old man as long as you have, Potter. Thanks for the—restoration.” Moody eyes him. “And if you’ll indulge me on one more point, what’s your warrior name?”

Harry studies him. “You realize that I’d have to kill you if you told anyone else.”

“No one else is worthy of hearing it.”

Harry nods. He reckons that he can share his warrior name as a gift if he wants to, the way he would with a foe who lies dying from his blades. “Doomgiver.”

Moody’s face breaks out in a vicious grin that Harry thinks Ripclaw would admire, the way Ripclaw would admire some of Moody’s scars. “Good one. Fitting. I’ll hold it to me as private as gold in a vault.”

Harry nods, satisfied with the oath, as strong as any human could be reasonably expected to make. “Thank you, Professor Moody. _Aratzif._ ”

“ _Groninnen_ ,” Professor Moody responds.

Harry is smiling as he leaves the Defense classroom. It will be pleasant to have someone besides Professor Flitwick to speak Gobbledegook with.

*

“Who is that woman, Harry?”

Luna’s voice is so tense that Harry is turning around immediately with one hand resting on her shoulder before he even sees where she’s looking. Then he catches Umbridge’s eye as she flounces over to the Head Table.

Umbridge is smiling.

“Her name is Dolores Umbridge,” Harry murmurs to Luna without taking his eyes from Umbridge. “She tried to convince the Ministry she was a Goblin Expert and to try me for the murder of Barty. But she didn’t succeed.”

“But what is she doing _here_?”

Harry shakes his head, but Dumbledore clears his throat and rises to his feet. He has the kind of constrained, unhappy expression on his face that he wore when he first saw Harry’s warrior-mark.

“I am—pleased to welcome Professor Dolores Umbridge to Hogwarts,” he announces. “She will be teaching the new Creature Culture classes that are a requirement for every student in their fourth year and up.”

 _Bigotry and Lies Classes,_ Harry translates. He watches Umbridge. She smiles at him and keeps looking at him even as she stands up and makes some kind of unpleasant, simpering speech about how much she looks forward to teaching everyone “the truth” about goblins, giants, Veela, centaurs, merfolk, and the like.

Harry frowns when he hears that. If she’s going to be insulting _everyone_ who isn’t human, then he can’t properly claim her as only a goblin kill.

But that only makes him smile when the obvious solution occurs to him.

 _I’ll just have to invite everyone to her classes,_ Harry decides cheerfully, and sits back to compose an owl to Fleur Delacour while Umbridge’s speech goes on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the reviews! While this ends “Harmonies Unconquerable,” it doesn’t end the story. I’ll be writing another part of the series in my next series of seasonal fics that will run from June to August 2021.

_A Hollow Thing of Shell_

The next morning brings an owl that simply bears a note summoning him to the Astronomy Tower. Harry goes up and is delighted to see Fleur there herself. Because of the Veela’s old feud with the goblins and the fact that they weren’t close during the Tournament, Harry thought she would take days to get here.

But Fleur, who nods to him coolly, immediately explains why she’s there. “We owe you a debt for rescuing my sister from the lake,” she says. “I do not fight well underwater. I would not have been able to reach her.” She blows out a harsh, high note of cold air. “And I may be living in Britain soon, if my courtship achieves…the result.” She looks at Harry, who nods to show her it’s the right word in English. “I do not wish for the British Ministry to be spreading these lies.”

Harry beams at her. “Congratulations on your courtship, and I’m glad that you’re a guest here.” He holds out his arm.

Fleur visibly wavers back and forth between the insult that touching a goblin will bring and the insult that refusing his escort would bring. In the end, she reaches out and lays her hand on his arm. “I can only do this because you were born human,” she warns him as they descend from the Astronomy Tower.

“I know that,” Harry responds, a little surprised. “I would never expect you to do it otherwise.”

Fleur looks at him from the corner of her eye. “You are truly a goblin. A human boy would be bending under my allure.”

“That’s what I keep telling everyone,” Harry says complacently.

*

“As long as he doesn’t kill anyone while he’s in the school.”

Magorian, the centaur leader, gives Harry a frown. “I would not send someone who would kill anyone in the school.”

“But he might kill someone outside of it?” Harry only shakes his head when Magorian blinks at him. “I listen, you know. And this is going to be infuriating, because she’s like that, a prejudiced, spiteful human. If Bane can’t control himself, then it’s only going to be a disaster instead of the triumph we want to make it.”

“I can control myself.” Bane stomps forwards, frowning mightily, and then draws the bow and quiver off his shoulders and lays them on the grass at Magorian’s feet. “To prove it, I will leave my weapons here.”

Harry studies him, then nods slowly. That’s an enormous concession, like him laying aside his daggers to enter the Ministry would be. “All right. Thank you, Bane.”

“There is the question of how he will make his way to the classroom,” says Magorian, with a little snap of his tail, although Harry can’t see any flies close to them.

“The stairs will reform themselves for him if I ask them to,” Harry tells them. “We already discussed that with the castle. The stones are thrilled to feel the tread of hooves again. The centaurs used to be frequent guests.”

Magorian and Bane exchange looks of surprise, and then Bane nods. “This might be tolerable after all.”

Harry ignores the temptation to ask why Bane planned to accept his invitation if it wouldn’t be at least tolerable. This is just the way centaurs are. “I need to make a detour to the lake to gather the merfolk’s representative, if you wouldn’t mind joining me? Fleur is making a spectacle of herself at breakfast to distract people from wondering where we are.”

“Bloody Veela,” Bane mutters, but follows Harry out onto the grounds and towards the lake. Harry can see the bubbles rising from the edge of the water before they even get there. He wonders if the merpeople will simply enclose their representative in a huge bubble of water to float along with them, and he’s a little concerned about that. The oxygen in the enclosed water will probably get very stale, perhaps even before Umbridge finishes the speech Harry fully expects to be greeted with.

It’s the queen herself who’s waiting for them at the edge of the water. Harry bows to her and sticks his head under the water with a Bubble-Head Charm, sending images through the water of the enclosed bubble.

The queen rejects them with a little shake of her head that makes the shells braided into her hair clatter, and sings to him.

“ _This is a threat that all of us must meet._  
 _I may not be able to walk on human feet,_  
 _But I can meet the challenge by journeying the land._  
 _To ensure that I can, please give me your hand._ ”

Overwhelmed, Harry extends his hand. The webbed, clawed one placed in his feels odd, but only for a moment, and then the merqueen is rising from the water, her body twisting in the center of a glittering column.

Bane gasps something, or maybe gibbers it. Harry doesn’t know. He doesn’t look at him. His eyes are locked on the merqueen in wonder as she draws more and more of the water from the lake, visibly lowering the level, and then leaps forwards, arching her body like a dolphin’s. The gesture rips her hand from his.

The water splashes ahead of the queen, digging a shallow basin in the earth and filling it, receiving her. The queen probably breathes right then, and leaps with another arch of her body and flip of her feet. Harry laughs in delight as he watches the water dancing around her like a rainbow of only one color, and digging another basin, and filling it, and then running ahead of her to create another basin to fill.

“I didn’t know they could do that.” Bane sounds shaken.

“Only their royalty can do it this well,” Harry says, and hurries ahead. He wants to make sure the water fixtures of Hogwarts are waiting to welcome the queen.

Luckily, it seems she knows that, and she’s waiting in a pool at the base of the front doors. Harry runs through them to the nearest bathroom, which is down the first flight of stairs that lead to the Hufflepuff common room.

He calls loudly to the sinks as he enters the bathroom, asking them if they’re help him welcome the visitor, and they respond, spinning themselves all on at once. Water rises from the loos as well, which is more than Harry dared to hope for, given how finicky they are and how superior they hold themselves to the faucets. (It’s silly, when they swallow human waste and the sinks help wash it up, but Harry has accepted that he’s never going to understand the internal politics of bathrooms).

The combined puddle of water flows past him and in a narrow stream out the doors. Harry leaps over it and runs back to the doors, bowing to the queen.

The water puddles and shines down the steps, and the merqueen pulls it into the pillar of water that surrounds her, digging another hole, and dancing into the school through pools shallow enough that Harry winces for her. But she doesn’t seem to notice any impact from the stone. Perhaps the water itself cushions her?

The merqueen finally reaches the level of the entrance hall and swims through the stream with little sliding motions of her body. Students are gaping from the stairs and the Great Hall entrance and the railings above. Harry waves at them and then turns to the front stairs, asking them to let Bane in.

The stairs flatten themselves in seconds. Harry wanted them to stay steps until the merqueen was past in case they interfered with her water magic, but it’s easy for them to become a ramp now.

Bane walks in, switching his tail and ignoring the gapes and screams that follow him. He stares at Harry. “Was it that simple all along?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “The steps are temperamental sometimes, you know. They don’t always do what I ask them. And if I wasn’t here, I don’t know if anyone would know enough about speaking to objects to convince them.”

Bane laughs abruptly and reaches out to pay Harry on the head. “It sounds to me as though you sincerely respect objects.”

Harry blinks. “Well, yes? Don’t you?”

“I think I might have to do more of it than I have,” Bane says, and starts walking towards the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the first floor. The merqueen has already drawn water from other bathrooms, by the swollen look of the stream, and doesn’t have to jump from pool to pool this time. She simply swims uphill, her green hair pouring behind her.

When she reaches the top of the stairs, Harry asks them, and they turn into a ramp for Bane, too. Bane trots up them, still chuckling to himself for some odd reason that Harry doesn’t understand.

“ _Harry Potter._ ”

The voice is low and deadly. Harry turns around to see Dumbledore standing in the entrance of the Great Hall, his hands reaching out to steady himself on one of the doors. He needs that because he’s swaying in place.

Harry blinks. “Have you been _drinking,_ Dumbledore? You know that Blackeye forbids you that much alcohol.”

“Harry Potter,” Dumbledore repeats, and he does sound drunk, but it also sounds like it might be with rage. He stalks towards Harry.

Harry waits for him, unimpressed. Dumbledore can do a lot of things, but scaring Harry isn’t one of them.

Dumbledore reaches out and grabs his shoulders for a sharp shake. Or he probably means it to be a sharp shake. Harry leans to the side, grabs Dumbledore’s arm, twists it a little, and puts him down on the floor. He doesn’t do it hard, because then he’d have to face Blackeye’s axe, but he does it.

The rest of the students gasp aloud at seeing Dumbledore kneeling like that in front of Harry. Harry shakes his head as he steps away. Maybe that will shift the internal power dynamics of the school, but honestly, the _smart_ ones always knew he could do that, and most of the rest should after seeing the gift-scar on his cheek.

“You can’t touch me like that,” Harry says gently. “You can touch me to help me, and you can use all the words you want, but you can’t touch me to hurt me.”

Dumbledore stares up at him from his kneeling position. Then he whispers, “Have you gone mad?”

“That’s the question I should be asking you. What were you thinking, hiring Umbridge to teach _Creature Culture_?”

“I had no choice!” Dumbledore’s hands clench in front of him. “The Ministry foisted her on me, and said they would remove me from my position as Headmaster otherwise.”

“And you didn’t think to ask for help? To turn to the Board of Governors, some of whom probably aren’t in the Ministry’s pocket? You didn’t do anything but go along with it?”

“I—it would be political suicide.”

Harry shakes his head. “Only suicide is suicide. Everything short of that is just something unpleasant you don’t want to do.”

Dumbledore opens his mouth and closes it without saying anything for a long moment. In the end, he whispers, “And what if you have made things worse?”

“There’s not a lot that’s worse than a bigoted professor telling students everything she _thinks_ she knows about creatures.”

Dumbledore only shakes his head. Harry pats his shoulder and goes into the Great Hall to retrieve Fleur for Umbridge’s class.

*

“Mr. Potter. _What_ is the meaning of this?”

Harry smiles. The classroom is a little crowded, since Professors Hagrid and Flitwick are there—Professor Hagrid is squeezed in at a little desk and cringing in apology for his size—and Bane kneeling on the floor in front of the first row of desks and Fleur standing haughtily beside Harry and the merqueen floating in the pool that the waters dug for her not far from the door, listening intently. Harry’s not sure what magic she worked to allow her to listen above the water, but it seems to be working fine so far.

“You said that you were going to teach Creature Culture,” Harry says. “I thought the creatures should be here to listen.”

Umbridge looks at the other students in the room as if she thinks they’re going to contradict Harry. But everyone from Gryffindor is grinning, and everyone from Ravenclaw is interested. Michael is already writing down questions that, from the way they look on the paper, Harry suspects he wants to ask Bane.

“Is anyone going to complain?” Umbridge asks. “Or are you all too intimidated by this little half-breed?”

“I’m going to complain,” Harry says. “About your lack of any argument except insults.”

“You _insolent_ —”

“See what I mean?” Harry asks Fleur. “I can’t imagine why they asked her to teach. She’s absolutely incapable of being fair and unbiased.”

Fleur sniffs. “Yes. The professors at Beauxbatons, they are much better.” She looks down her nose at Umbridge, which is so spectacular is makes Umbridge back a step away from her. “I am disappointed with the quality of education at Hogwarts.”

Umbridge appears to be swelling up. Harry hopes that they’ll get lucky and she’ll burst, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, Umbridge stabs her hands onto her hips.

“Detention, all of you!” she shrieks.

“Sorry, but we are not students.” Fleur flicks her hair over her shoulder. “But we are awaiting most anxiously the content of this class.”

“Mr. Potter is a student!”

“You think I’m going to come to any detention that you assign me?” Harry snorts. “You’re wildly optimistic for a Ministry plant.”

Umbridge stares around as if expecting someone to stand up and champion her. The students just goggle, though, and Professor Flitwick frowns sternly. Harry can see the giggles he’s trying to hide.

Bane slaps and flicks his tail hard against his flanks, not taking his stare away from Umbridge.

“ _Fine_ ,” Umbridge says finally, teeth so gritted that Harry is surprised she doesn’t break them. “Here are the books for the class.” She waves her stubby wand, and the books soar out of a bag placed against the wall that she must have brought with her.

Harry studies the one that lands in front of him, and then shakes his head. “I think there must be some mistake. This is a pamphlet, not a book.”

“Mr. Potter, you will _be silent._ ”

“You’re going to silence me for speaking facts?” Harry holds up the pamphlet, a shoddy thing that has _Living Quietly in a Pureblood World: A Guide for Creatures_ on the front. “Look at the binding. It’s a pamphlet. Also, you didn’t know you were going to have so many creatures showing up to listen to your classes, so why is this just meant for us?”

Umbridge draws herself up. “Other children must know how to act to teach creatures their place.”

“Is the place stabbing you?”

Umbridge looks absurdly happy. “The Minister told me what to do if you made threats,” she begins.

“I just asked a question, is all.” Harry leans his elbow on the desk and smiles at her. “After all, I need to know what my place is if I’m going to fit into it, don’t I?”

Umbridge might be chewing one of the Headmaster’s lemon drops, but she finally nods. “Your place is at the feet of purebloods,” she says. “Accepting that you are lesser than they are. Creatures can have their place, can even have certain limited rights, like the right of goblins to guard our gold. But they are not as powerful as purebloods, and not as worthy.”

“Not as powerful,” Bane says, with a shake of his head. “When a kick from one of my hooves could cave in your chest?”

“Threats!” Umbridge shrieks, pointing with a finger.

“Not at all, Dolores,” Professor Flitwick says. “it was merely a question, like Mr. Potter’s. And it does bring up something everyone should think about.” He glances around at the other students. “What does _power_ mean? Is it magical? Physical? Financial? Political?”

Hermione Granger from Gryffindor leans forwards, her face going lively. “I think it’s all those things, sir, in different contexts.”

“Very good, Miss Granger. Two points to Gryffindor. In that case, we must ask Professor Umbridge to define her terms some more.” Professor Flitwick turns back and looks pointedly at Umbridge. Harry is impressed that he can speak of her as a _professor_ without laughing. “What kind of power is it, Professor?”

“All kinds of power. Purebloods are undoubtedly superior.”

“Superior?” Fleur tosses her hair over her shoulder again. “But we have already proven that centaurs are physically stronger than wizards, and you admitted yourself, _madam,_ that goblins hold the gold in Britain, giving them the financial power. I myself have greater power of beauty than any student here.” She glances around the room, and a few of the boys begin drooling. Harry supposes that’s the “allure” she’s gone on about.

“I think I’m pretty strong magically,” Harry volunteers. “I can do lots of things that most wizards can’t, like talking to objects and wielding a basilisk-fang dagger.”

The merqueen blows some bubbles from her pool. They reach the surface and emerge into a soft, beautiful singsong.

“ _The folk who dwell beneath the waves_  
 _Know the power that no one braves,_  
 _The power that strangles life and breath:_  
 _We in the water know the power of death._ ”

“Threats!” Umbridge shrieks, pointing at the pool.

“No, a cultural statement,” Fleur says.

Harry ducks his head a little to hide his grin. Umbridge is just so _furious,_ and it’s really entertaining.

Umbridge stands taller. “The book explains all the kinds of power,” she says, with a stamp of her foot. “Pureblood wizards have _all_ of it, and we tolerate the rest of you living here, in our world, and practicing your little _customs_ and acting out your little _dramas,_ but the power is ours!”

“You can explain all of those in a pamphlet?” Harry asks, looking down doubtfully at the thin thing on the desk.

“It is a _book_!”

Harry flips through the pamphlet, which seems to feature mostly crude sketches of goblins and centaurs bowing to figures in robes. “No, sorry,” he says, holding it up so that the last page number clearly shows. “This only has 32 pages, and they’re small. I’m pretty sure that a certain _thickness_ is required in books.”

“Does it say anything about Veela?” Fleur leans over his shoulder.

“No, but we should ask Umbridge what she knows about them,” Harry says, and smiles at Umbridge. “After all, last night she mentioned Veela in her speech, and said that she would be teaching Creature Culture Classes about all _sorts_ of creatures.”

“What does it say about centaurs?” Bane cranes his neck.

“It shows you bowing down to wizards and witches.” Harry extends the pamphlet to show him, and Bane flips through the pages then, then snorts.

“No natural centaur bends like that. I’m sure the person who drew these has never seen a centaur in his life.”

Harry grins. “Well, you can’t be surprised by that, Bane. These people would hardly have seen a centaur _bowing_ to them, in any case.”

“Enough!” Umbridge screams.

The firework spell that goes off from her wand lofts and explodes against the ceiling. Sparks rain down on everyone in the room. Harry lifts a quick shield and watches some of the burning pieces roll away.

He frowns at Umbridge when he’s sure no one’s immediately hurt. Even Moody—even fake Moody last year—doesn’t use those kinds of spells in his class unless he’s put up shields first, and he’s about the toughest Defense professor they’ve had.

“You can’t just cast spells like that in front of a bunch of kids who can’t defend themselves,” he says.

Professor Hagrid clears his throat for the first time. “Yeah. ‘Snot right.” He grimaces at Umbridge. “What’s the big deal, Professor Umbridge?”

This time, when Umbridge points, it’s with her wand, and it’s straight at Professor Hagrid. " _You_ are a half-breed who belongs in Azkaban!”

“Then I belong in Azkaban, too, right?” Harry asks, bouncing to his feet and striding across the room to get between Umbridge and Professor Hagrid. Even though he’s so big, Professor Hagrid is blushing and mumbling, and it’s a goblin warrior’s part to defend the defenseless. “And so does Fleur, and Professor Flitwick.”

“ _This_ half-breed was expelled from Hogwarts for opening the Chamber of Secrets,” Umbridge says, her eyes sparkling with cruelty, while Professor Hagrid bows lower and lower in his seat. “That’s why he can’t use his wand. It was broken. And you _dare_ to say that he belongs out of Azkaban?”

“They couldn’t have found proof, or they would have done more than expel him,” Harry says. “And anyway, he wasn’t the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

Something, maybe the absolute confidence in his voice, makes Umbridge turn and glare at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets. He let a fragment of himself behind in a diary, and that was what came to the school and possessed someone to open it a few years ago, too. Riddle is Voldemort’s human name.” Harry doesn’t know for sure now if the spirit who possessed the kelpie-body in the graveyard was Voldemort or not—it seems like it would have been easy to trick poor mad Barty—but whoever he is, he isn’t human any longer.

Umbridge flinches. “The Dark wizard known as You-Know-Who is _dead_ ,” she snarls.

“Maybe he is,” Harry concedes, “but the one known as Voldemort isn’t.”

Umbridge leans towards him. “Do not say that name.”

“Or what?” Harry asks, leaning in far enough that Umbridge jerks back because she apparently believes that she’s going to be polluted if he touches her. “Will you draw your wand and duel me? Or do something else?’

“I am not going to duel a _half-breed_.” Umbridge sniffs and steps away. Harry sighs. She does it _just_ enough to avoid being insulting. “Let alone a child. You are not worth the honor of dueling a pureblood.”

“Well, you’re not worth the honor of dueling a goblin warrior, but we all have to make concessions sometimes.”

Umbridge catches her breath in what sounds like an angry gasp, and turns her back on Harry to look around the classroom. “Who can tell me what the laws pertaining to goblins are?”

“That’s a broad questions,” Granger says, with a small frown. “Could you explain which ones you’re thinking of, Professor?”

“The answer would be obvious to any pureblood.” Umbridge sneers as she turns to look at Granger. “Who are you, girl?”

“Hermione Granger, _professor._ ”

Umbridge doesn’t take the warning in Granger’s tone, even though she really should. She laughs nastily. “Right. A Mudblood. _The_ Gryffindor Mudblood, the one that stands out most in the House. Professor Snape warned me about you.”

Granger leans back in her chest, her face very pale and her eyes wide. Harry thinks that must be the first time she’s ever heard something like that from a professor, despite the way that he knows Snape goes after Gryffindors in his classes.

It makes Harry angry.

He waits until Umbridge turns around, probably in search of another victim, and then stalks back to his desk, picks up the stupid pamphlet, and rips the cover off.

The pamphlet squawks at him, but now that the cover is separate from the rest, it’s telling him that it never wants to connect to the rest of the “book” and have to admire its childish drawings ever again. Harry nods, while keeping one eye on Umbridge.

She falls for it. “How dare you destroy your book, you little _brat_!”

“Pamphlet,” Harry corrects.

Fleur is watching him out of the corner of her eye, no doubt wondering what Harry’s plan is. Harry smiles at her, and just waits for Umbridge to stomp back over to him and snatch the rest of the ruined pamphlet off his desk.

“One of the laws about _goblins_ ,” she spits, “is that they may not destroy Ministry _property_ without permission!”

“But you gave the pamphlets to everyone in class.” Harry blinks around the classroom with innocent eyes. “Doesn’t that mean that they belong to Hogwarts students, and we can’t get in trouble if we destroy them?”

Terry seems to be the one who gets it first, but Granger is the one who acts. She snatches up her pamphlet and rips the cover off, too. “Oops,” she says, her tone sugary while her eyes flash. “ _So_ sorry, _Professor._ ”

Dean Thomas follows her, and Ron Weasley, and then Terry, although he’s grimacing, as if to destroy a kind of book goes against his Ravenclaw sensibilities. Harry pats him on the shoulder for doing it anyway.

“You—stop that!” Umbridge stares around the room as she watches more and more people rip the covers off. “Why are you doing this? You’re wizards! Purebloods! You should be cheering me on!”

“I might be a witch, but I’m no pureblood,” Granger says, and tears off a few more pages.

Fleur sniffs. “And I am a witch, while also being a Veela,” she says, and swirls her hair around her shoulders. “We did not discuss in enough detail what power my people hold.”

“What are you talking about?” Umbridge’s voice is a wail.

Fleur lifts her eyebrows a little, holding Umbridge’s gaze. Umbridge backs up, shuddering, and puts her hands over her face.

“No, I don’t _want_ that!” she whispers. “I don’t want it, I don’t!”

“What are you doing?” Harry whispers to Fleur behind his hand. The other students are staring at Fleur now as if they think she’s using her allure on _Umbridge_ , but Harry doesn’t think that’s true.

“We are creatures of desire,” Fleur murmurs back, without looking away from Umbridge. Apparently she can affect her even though Umbridge isn’t strictly looking at her now. “We can draw the desires of a person forwards and make them _feel_ them.”

“What does she want?”

“Something she thinks she should not want.”

Fleur doesn’t seem to know the specifics, but she also seems unconcerned. Harry can understand that. As long as the tactic defeats the enemy, one doesn’t need to understand everything about how it works.

Umbridge suddenly tears her hands from her eyes and glares at Fleur. “You cannot _make_ me want it!”

“No.” Fleur is unruffled, and she smiles as she seems to drop a certain kind of power Harry didn’t realize she was projecting. “But I can make you remember that you wanted it at least once, whatever it be.”

Umbridge _shrieks_ and comes running across the classroom. Harry isn’t sure whether she’s going to punch Fleur in the face or try to do something else. She seems to have forgotten entirely about her wand, though.

She never gets there. Bane sticks out his leg and Umbridge trips over it. At the same moment, her hand splashes into the pool that the merqueen is floating in.

Harry jumps to his feet, concerned that the disruption of the water means the merqueen will lose her control over the pool, but instead, the merqueen rises and blows a huge bubble in Umbridge’s face.

It acts like a pail of cold water, perhaps, if actually falling over Bane’s leg didn’t. Umbridge sits up, panting heavily, and stares around at the classroom. There’s a silence so complete Harry isn’t sure who’s the first one to break it.

But he does know that the person who breaks it laughs.

Umbridge pants heavily as she reaches out to the nearest pamphlet, the one that’s lying on Michael’s desk, and flings it into the air. “I _quit_!” she screams, and then stands up and storms out of the classroom.

Bane’s tail almost trips her again.

When she’s gone, the students look at each other. “What do we do now?” Granger asks, sounding a little lost. Harry reckons that she’s never had free time when a class was supposed to be meeting before. If a professor is sick, like Professor Lupin got around his transformations, someone else always took over.

Professor Flitwick gets up and walks to the front of the classroom. He turns and winks at Harry, then says, “It occurs to me that, at least for this period of time, some of my students are supposed to be learning about creatures, and I have no Charms class to teach. I suppose that some of you would like to learn about the _real_ goblin culture?”

“Yes!” Granger says eagerly, and is echoed by other people cheering and throwing the torn covers of the pamphlets into the air. Harry casts a small charm to gather them all up and float them over to him.

“Mr. Potter, will you come up here and help me demonstrate a real goblin warrior’s fighting skill?”

Harry grins. It’s not often that he’ll get to demonstrate those skills outside of battle, or training with Ginny. This ought to be _fun._

_A Sigh Arose_

Harry has waited for almost ten minutes now, but Dumbledore has yet to lift his head out of his hands.

“What am I going to _do_?” Dumbledore finally whispers, when Harry has made his mind up to go find Blackeye right away if another minute of silence passes.

“Tell the Minister that Umbridge quit on her own.” Harry shrugs. “She did.”

Dumbledore stares at him with dazed eyes. “What am I going to do about the water in the Great Hall?”

“The merqueen took most of it with her back to the lake. And stone can dry, you know.” It helped that Harry went and found the Hogwarts house-elves in the kitchens, and they were happy to clean the stones once they heard that the stones didn’t like being wet.

“What am I going to do about _you_?”

“Offer me an Order of Merlin First Class for driving Umbridge away?” Harry suggests. He doesn’t know that much about Orders of Merlin, but he knows that they’re things humans give people they feel thankful to. If Dumbledore wants to give him one, then Harry will graciously accept it.

Dumbledore drops his head back into his hands, and screams. But he doesn’t get up and stomp off, so Harry doesn’t think he has Mermish heritage after all.

“The Ministry _insisted_ on the Creature Classes,” Dumbledore whispers. He sounds as if he’s talking to himself, but Harry can still hear him, so he thinks that he can answer.

“Then have a real creature teach them. I know that Blackeye would be happy to. She likes to be at Hogwarts, you know, and it would let her supervise me and you. She likes that.”

Dumbledore pushes his chair back so suddenly that it falls over. He stands up and paces back and forth across the room. Harry waits in polite silence. He doesn’t know what Dumbledore is on about, but this is better than the terrible silence of before.

Dumbledore spins around and points a finger at him. Harry thinks of telling him that he has bad associations with that movement because of Umbridge, but Dumbledore is already speaking, panting a little as he does it.

“We are going to begin the hunt for the Horcruxes. It might take us a long time to identify them, and Voldemort might come back before we find them all. Yes. Yes. That’s what we’ll do. _That_ will keep you occupied.”

Harry smiles. “All right.”

Dumbledore eyes him. “What do you mean, all right?”

Harry shrugs a little. “I’ve been wanting to hunt the Horcruxes for months, you know that. So we’ll start. Maybe you and I can go and look in Gringotts. It’s so secure, Voldemort might have put one there.”

“Yes, yes, we will.” Dumbledore’s voice is rapid, and he almost pushes Harry towards the door of the office. “Now, why don’t you go and speak to a goblin— _not Blackeye_ —about teaching the Creature Culture classes. Or a centaur. Or the merqueen. Just so long as you leave me alone for a while.”

His door slams behind Harry, and Harry shrugs as he rides the moving staircase down. He can’t hear any shrieking behind the door, which is probably an improvement. Dumbledore must be wondering what kind of Order of Merlin to give Harry.

Harry smiles as he steps out into the corridor and leans on a windowsill to look at the rising full moon. He hopes Remus is somewhere turning into a happy werewolf and not hurting himself. Sirius is probably with him.

Fleur is going back to France in the morning, but he and she have promised to write. And Bane said he would speak a good word to the other centaurs about Harry, so Harry might have some allies there, too.

The merqueen invited him to come spar with her warriors whenever he likes. Harry thinks he might do that this evening, and take Ginny and Luna with him.

Mostly, though, he’s really satisfied that some things are going _right._ No more Umbridge. Dumbledore finally including him in the hunt for the Horcruxes. The Ministry’s attempt to interfere at Hogwarts blunted. Other creatures coming together and talking to the goblins for the first time in a long time.

Harry straightens up and walks away from the window when he’s had enough of watching the moon. He has to eat dinner, and he has to go find Ginny and Luna, and he has sparring to do this evening.

But first, he does have to find Blackeye and tell her about the teaching position. Because he does think she’s the best fit to teach the Creature Culture classes.

And so does Dumbledore, deep down. Humans just have a hard time admitting things like that.

_It’s for his own good, really._

**The End.**


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